


Songs of the Illusionary Veil

by Achariyth



Category: Touhou Project
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achariyth/pseuds/Achariyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots covering everything from the silly to the artistic and beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Devil's Due

Bright was the day; cold was the fire extinguisher…

Marisa Kirisame screamed as she waved a black wand outside of her door. Thick white clouds hissed out of the witch's cottage, covering everything in a fine chemical snow. As the last cloud faded on the wind, she slammed the door, leaving Patchouli Knowledge and Koakuma standing on the porch. Both girls looked like slender snow women.

Patchouli coughed. "That went just about as expected." She took her hat off and patted it, sending powder into the air. "What's your problem?"

Koakuma huddled next to the librarian and shivered. "I look like an angel," the devil wailed. She flapped her wings, flinging showers of white everywhere.

"Watch it," Patchouli said, backing away from her servant. "Or else I'll find a halo with your name on it." The librarian rubbed at the back of her hand and frowned. "This isn't coming off."

The little devil grabbed Patchouli's collar. "This is your fault. You know what happens whenever you try to get your books back."

A window slid open. Koakuma ducked as a slipper sailed through the air and bounced off Patchouli's forehead. "Go away. Let me sleep," Marisa said.

The elementalist rubbed her forehead. "I want my books," she said, shaking her fist.

A thick wall of powder washed over the librarian and her servant. "And I want to go back to bed," Marisa said, leaning out her window. "You can have them back when I'm dead."

"You want me to wait sixty years for my books?" Patchouli said.

"There is a quicker way," Koakuma whispered.

"Hush," the librarian said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not leaving and you're not sleeping until I get what's mine."

The window slid shut, and a clamor like bowling balls falling down steps reverberated from the cottage. Marisa kicked her door open. In one hand, the witch held a leather codex with her name written on the cover in large letters. In the other hand, her elemental reactor glowed. "Wanna bet?"

"How do you like it when someone comes into your house uninvited for a change?" Patchouli said, planting her hands on her hips.

Koakuma barely pulled her mistress out of the Master Spark's way. The devil groaned as the librarian fell on top of her. Looking up, she sighed as she gazed into the elemental furnace's glow of doom.

"Go away. I have a hangover fit for two oni, and you're not helping. We can talk about this later," Marisa said, glowering as she stood over the tangled librarian and demon. "Otherwise-" the furnace's glow brightened.

Patchouli stood up, brushing at her skirt. Purple cloth streaked through the layer of white. "Very well. Come, Seraphim."

Koakuma ground her teeth as she followed her mistress out of the Forest of Magic.

***

Rivulets of water streamed down Koakuma's face, carrying shampoo into her eyes. She looked up at the showerhead, forcing her eyes open so that the water could rinse away the burning. Blinking, the devil stepped out of the spray and grabbed a thick handful of her long hair. Pulling it in front of her face, Koakuma hissed and reached for the shampoo bottle.

Her hair shone with the ethereal white gold of diffuse sunlight, as it once did long ago.

The little devil lathered her hair until bubbles covered her head in a thick beehive. She stepped back under the water, clenching her eyes as soap cascaded from her skin. The strawberry scent finally washed away, and Koakuma stepped out to check on her hair. Her hands shook and she flung the shampoo bottle across the shower.

Angel hair. How dare Marisa do this to her, bleaching her hair with the fire extinguisher? Koakuma did not agree with much in the Old Man's book, but even He knew that luxurious hair was a woman's glory. No proud devil wanted to look like those simpering love-freak do-gooder toadies that infested Heaven. Marisa didn't even known how many centuries of work it had taken Koakuma to get her hair a proper sinful scarlet when she ruined it with a shout and a spray of some kind of bleach. No, that little mortal meat sack was too wrapped up in her own little world and that book of hers to care what damage her actions had done to Koakuma's pride and vanity.

Koakuma smiled as she tilted her head. So that little thief had written a book of her own. Had anyone written their name in large script on any of Patchouli's books, the mistress would have ripped her apart. It would be rough justice, but justice nonetheless for Marisa to find out what it was like to have someone steal from her for a change. Certainly, His Infernal Majesty would forgive her this one little indiscretion. The little devil grinned, murmuring happily to herself as she imagined the look on the witch's face.

She froze under the water. Did she just say the words "justice" and "forgiveness" like Michael himself? Next, she'd be talking about love and peace. And when she started talking about mercy, it was all over. She might as well start wearing a halo and a white robe. The little devil wailed. She did not want to be redeemed.

Koakuma burst out of the shower and into a decadent fluffy towel. "Must. Think. Evil. Thoughts," she repeated to herself.

***

Marisa groaned as she groped for a pillow on her bed. Her fingers pulled a pillowcase into her grasp, letting the witch cover her face with the soft bag of down. Full body pains, headaches, and unwanted visitors had scared away all hope of sleep, yet the witch kept tossing and turning. Maybe she'd get lucky and find rest. She'd certainly feel worse if she didn't. Besides, what would she do otherwise, clean her cottage?

Once upon a time, in between dances at a campfire revel, Alice performed a puppet play about a princess who could not sleep because she could feel a small pea hidden beneath her mattresses. Marisa had laughed at the puppeteer's show. Now the witch wasn't laughing. By the feel of it, someone had dumped an entire can of peas under Marisa's bed, each one small enough that she might as well claim an empress's crown. She blamed Alice. The puppeteer had clucked loud and long over how much Marisa had drank the night before. Even if Marisa's blonde rival had nothing to do with the witch's current discomfort, she still was the one who told that blasted story haunting Marisa's mind.

A gust of wind played across her skin. Marisa burrowed deeper into her blankets.

She should have never taunted Tenshi Hinanawi the night before. The danmaku had been lovely, full of magic and beauty, each cluster designed to impress as well as overwhelm. While the surrounding crowd chose Marisa as the winner in their spell card duel, the only way Marisa had soothed Tenshi's wrath was to share a drink or two. However, the Celestial's competitive streak required mug after mug and shot after shot before it could be quenched. Marisa had swayed her way home under the watchful eye of a guardian angel that had the poor manners to turn down her offer to tuck her into bed.

A vase fell, shattering against the floor. Marisa sat up, flinging away the pillow and her covers. The witch froze as she saw the platinum hair and wings. Was Tenshi no longer content to have nearly drunk Marisa to death that she had sent an angel to finish the job?

Two bat wing ears twitched on the figure's head as it picked something up from Marisa's nightstand. Marisa scooped up her elemental furnace from under her pillows. She found comfort in the soothing glow as she aimed her furnace towards the intruder…

***

Koakuma flew through the forest, looking back over her shoulder. She cried out, diving behind a thick oak as a dense cloud of danmaku flew past. Behind her, Marisa wove through the trees on her broom. While the combination of the witch's hat and nightgown bordered on the ridiculous, the intricate and devastating barrages were anything but.

The devil clung tight to her leather-bound prize as she burst out of the woods and across the Misty Lake. She skimmed the surface, fanning water behind her and drenching any fairies too slow to get out of her way. Turning erratically, Koakuma slalomed across the lake, eking out close calls as Marisa bracketed her path with lasers and shot. The devil grazed past a Master Spark as water gaze way to a field.

Koakuma looked up and smiled as she saw a familiar fence. Straining, she poured on speed lest Marisa wall off her freedom with shot. She saw a growing blur of red and green. "Look out!"

Meiling looked up to see Patchouli's assistant hurtling towards her, chased by clouds of blue and red. The gatekeeper leapt as the devil slid feet first under her skirts. Meiling landed and reached out, pulling Marisa off her broom by the witch's pajamas. Swatting glowing spell cards out of Marisa's hands, the gatekeeper asked, "What's going on?"

"That little thief-" Marisa said, kicking in the air. Meiling held her centimeters off the ground in a firm grip.

"Alleged, you mean," Meiling hissed. The Chinese girl's eyes narrowed.

Marisa reddened as Koakuma blew her a raspberry, still clutching the witch's book against her chest. "Fine, whatever. Do you allegedly mind allegedly asking her what she allegedly stole from me?"

Koakuma waved as she walked towards her freedom, only to bounce off the mansion's maid. "Sakuya," she said, scooting away.

"Is what she said true?" the elegant maid said. Steel danced in front of Koakuma's eyes. The devil nodded. "The Mistress is asleep, so Lady Patchouli will see to this, as I know she will want to. Come, Meiling, let's bring them both to the library."

***

Inside the Voile Library, Patchouli Knowledge sat on her favorite chair like a queen holding court. Like Koakuma, her hair had suffered from the fire extinguisher's chemical brew, giving her tresses a metallic burnt rose sheen. Unlike her devilish assistant, Patchouli shrugged off the change.

She looked out over the top of a thick book and frowned. Meiling held Marisa still and steady, twisting the witch's arm whenever she got too out of line. Next to them, Sakuya stood behind a shuddering Koakuma.

"What am I to do?" Patchouli said, turning a page in an alchemical romance. Thick copper and bronze bracelets looped and shone around her wrists.

"She started it!" the devil and the witch said together.

Patchouli held up her hand. Marisa and Koakuma fell silent, assisted by their minders. She set down the romance and slid Marisa's book in front of her. "You've stolen enough from me that, by rights, I should hold onto this until you return my property."

"Hey, I stole that fair and square. You used dirty tricks," Marisa hissed. "I keep on telling you when you can have them back."

"Your search for immorality," Patchouli said, glaring. "Pardon me, I meant immortality, is one of Gensokyo's worst kept secrets. You are right, however, that one of my own caused this." Koakuma shrugged off her mistress's glare. "So I will be giving you your book back."

"After all she's done?" Koakuma shouted. "Besides, I stole that fair and square."

Patchouli opened the tome in front of her. Flipping pages, she nodded as she read. "I'm not done. Marisa, this is an impressive work. You should let us make copies for safekeeping."

The witch shrugged and smiled. "Sure. There's more to sell that way."

"Koakuma, you will make copies for a week. After that time, Marisa can get her book back."

The devil's face fell, and she dropped to her hands and knees as though power had left her. Her shoulders trembled as if she were sobbing.

"Serves you right," Marisa said, laughing.

The librarian held her hand up again. "Since we will be doing this service for you, let us talk compensation."

Koakuma's sobbing melted into laughter. Marisa frowned as she looked around the room. Meiling and Sakuya struggled to keep their faces stern.

"Fine," Marisa said.

"You will return one book of mine," Patchouli said, holding up a single finger.

"Don't you think you're getting the better-?"

"Two books." A second finger joined the first.

"I see. So the fix is in."

"Three books."

"Why stop there?"

"Four books."

Marisa opened her mouth, but Meiling twisted her arm once more. The gatekeeper shook her head. "Listen, for once." The witch closed her mouth and stared at the librarian.

Patchouli shook her head. "I could have gotten more if you had left her alone, Meiling. So, do we have a deal? Your book for four of mine."

"It's not like I have a choice," Marisa said, shaking her arm free. She spit in her palm and held it out towards Patchouli. The librarian recoiled from the witch's dripping hand. "This is how people down my way seal a deal," Marisa said, grinning.

Patchouli sighed and grabbed Marisa's hand gingerly, pumping it once before pulling it away. Wiping her hand on a purple handkerchief, she said, "We're agreed." She frowned and looked at Sakuya. "Is Koa alright?"

The devilish assistant laughed and laughed until tears streamed down her face.

***

Marisa flew outside the Scarlet Devil Mansion with a wry smile on her face. Sure, she had promised, under duress, to return four books in exchange for her grimoire, but a little deft finger work while everyone's backs were turned had fixed that. She flourished her ill-gotten gains and landed on the Gensokyo side of the mansion's fence.

With a smile, she ran her hand across the leather binding of the topmost book of the stack. Marisa looked forward to reading each of her new acquisitions; otherwise, there would be no fun in the theft. She opened the cover and rested her finger on a random page.

"'I want to use more magic,'" she read aloud, her face growing redder with each word. "'so that I'll eventually be known as a great witch. This book should help; if not, I'll just sell it. I'm sure I can get a high price." She quivered as she found the name of the writer.

Marisa Kirisame.

The witch dropped the book and flipped open the next. Familiar spell card comment greeted her. The third revealed that stunning sketch of Suika's "Missing Purple Power" spell card that Marisa had drawn some weeks before. The witch didn't even have to open the last book to know it was hers. How could she have here in her hands four copies of a book Patchouli had sworn would take a week to copy? Unless-

Marisa spun towards the Scarlet Devil Mansion and shook her fist at the windows. "KOAKUMA!"

The golden-haired devil waved from the balcony and smiled.

***

Author's Notes:

I didn't realizing when I first wrote this that Iced Fairy had beaten me to the name and the basic plot. Thanks to him for being so gracious about it.

The excerpt that Marisa read is a loose paraphrase from the actual "Grimoire of Marisa."

Thanks again to Kerreb17 for pre-reading and wading through all the typos.


	2. In the Light of the Eternal Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young woman seeks to earn acknowledgement as a master storyteller.

"'Once upon a time,' began a tale," said the storyteller. - "Once Upon a Time," Cirque du Soleil, La Nouba

***

"Milady, you don't need to do this," one of my family's many maids said.

I sighed as I rolled my shoulders and tugged at my clothes. My protector meant well, but fairies could be so single-minded. Besides, she wouldn't understand. "It'll be fine," I said.

The maid, I think her name was Akari, stared at me incredulously. To be honest, as we stood outside the infamous Taller de Lluna Eterna, I couldn't blame her. I knew what I looked like, wearing long hair and curves not my own. Just another too young girl trying to look older just to get into some place she really should say away from. Hopefully, the fact that I could buy better disguises would keep my identity hidden longer.

"Milady-"

I held a hand up. Even the best disguise wouldn't survive one wayward word. "Just pick me up here at the end of the night."

"But-"

"Go," I said, watching as one of the Taller's rabbits walked towards me. "Hurry."

Akari scurried away, shaking her head. I knew I'd get an earful when I got home.

The rabbit curtsied in front of me. "Come this way. Princess Kaguya awaits."

I gulped as I followed my guide. For all my preparations, I still wasn't ready to meet Princess Houraisan, the famed beauty and storyteller. But where the other girls who had raided their mother's closet earnestly sought the princess's acknowledgment that they were girls no longer, I had something else in mind.

I wanted to be called a storyteller.

***

It had started a few weeks earlier, on a trip into the village. I sat outside one of the eateries, chatting with my maid Akane as we shared a strawberry parfait.

"Give it here!" Merlin Prismriver shouted, as she chased after her sisters. She reached out for whatever shiny object Lyrica kept pulling out of the trumpeter's reach. "We helped you earn that!"

"I told you that you should have chosen a speaking part," Lunasa said, rolling her eyes as Merlin tackled Lyrica. "You knew the Taller's rules. That wasn't a concert, after all."

"You can't tell a story if you don't speak," Lyrica said, flipping Merlin off of her and over her shoulder. The ghostly girl vanished into the ground. A white hand lunged out of the earth, grabbing hold of Lyrica's foot before pulling her through rock and dirt.

A silver coin clattered against stone. Against my better judgment, I walked over and picked it up. Flipping it over, I saw the image of an oversized full moon behind Eternity Manor inscribed in the metal. A chill ran down my spine; Lunasa was pulling on my arm.

"Excuse me, but could you give that back? It means a great deal to my sisters," the poltergeist said.

"Sure," I said, handing the coin over. "But could you tell me about it? I've never seen anything like that before."

Lunasa sighed as the ground beneath us trembled. "It's a Mark of the Eternal Moon, and it's pretty rare."

"Is Eternity Manor minting its own coins now? How much is it worth?"

"Nothing in the market, but at the right inn, a certain gig and a lot of money," Lunasa said. Noting my confusion, she continued. "It's like a storyteller's medal. Perform in front of Princess Kaguya and her friends and they decide if you get one. Only a master of the craft can earn one, and if you show it at the right spot, you'll get paid like one. Now, if you'll excuse me…" The ghost reached into the ground and pulled her sisters out. "We're leaving," she said, dragging her sisters behind her.

A storyteller's medal? A chance to be known for something other than my fate! "Where do you get this?"

"The Taller de Lluna Eterna," Merlin yelled just before Lunasa pulled her around a corner. "At Eternity Manor."

In the weeks that followed, I immersed myself in the history and mystique of the Taller and the mark, building up my courage until, almost as if driven by a will not my own, I grabbed a wig and Western clothes, and ordered Akari to sneak me out of my family's manor.

***

"Miss?" a white-haired rabbit said, waving a hand in front of my face. She looked like one of Tewi's daughters, but with snowy hair instead of black.

I jumped at her voice, my cheeks burning. "I'm sorry."

"Did you intend to watch or perform tonight?" The Taller's entrance split into two doors. The left led to the performers' table and the other, to the Founder's Court, where the listeners sat.

My heart pounded in my chest. Knowing my family, I'd have just this one chance. "Perform."

The rabbit nodded and lead me through the left door. "That's brave of you. I assume you're here to win your mark."

Only a master storyteller could win the silver-moon mark from the Princess. "Is there any other reason to be here?"

She laughed. "You might be surprised. Some, like Anchoress Ibara, just like the audience."

"There's no other reason for me to be here."

"So, would you like to let us know which story you will be sharing?"

"Not at this time."

"Suit yourself. Just know that the ladies frown on grandstanding. I must, at least, have a name."

"A-akemi," I stammered. My cheeks burned again; I had wanted to say "Murasaki," after my favorite character, but my tongue slipped.

"Very well, I'm Yukimi," the rabbit said. "Mistress of the Stage. The Ladies might decide if you earn your mark, but I decide when you go on stage."

"Understood." We rounded a corner, and my eyes widened as I saw the small stage that I had dreamed about. Just a few minutes on that wooden stage would give life or death to my dream. Others would have a second chance to win their marks; I would not. But that decision would have to wait. Miss Reisen knelt before a long stringed box that reminded me of the Chinese dulcimer that I saw a wandering musician once play, yet the sound seemed fuller, almost like a harp.

"What is she playing?" I asked Mistress Yukimi as she motioned to me to sit at a table to the side of the stage.

"It's a hammered dulcimer. Countess Yakumo found it on her travels," Mistress Yukimi said.

The color drained from my face. Lady Yukari, here? No one had mentioned that she might attend. If so, I might as well take off my disguise now.

The Mistress of the Stage smiled at me and pointed to where Miss Reisen's mallets struck a frantic melody as they flew across the strings. "It's an acquired taste to be sure. But then again, so many things from the outside are. I must attend to the other performers, Akemi. I'll let you know when your turn may be."

Fortunately, the performer's table let us see the audience. Miss Alice sat in the front row. The first to win the mark and the only to have won it without speaking a single word, the puppeteer never missed a night. I even thought I could see Wriggle's telltale antennae peeking over the first few rows of guests.

"A lovely night," a man's voice said from behind me. I turned around and saw a young man with red hair smiling at me. My cheeks reddened as I scooted away from him in my chair. "Made even lovelier by you."

"None of that," Miss Kasen said as she appeared, slipping between myself and the young man.

"All I wanted was the lady's name," he said, shifting his rakish grin to the anchoress. "Certainly, that'd be a manner too trifling for someone as important as you."

"I know you, Hikaru Genji, by the trail of broken hearts you leave in your wake," Miss Kasen said, staring down the young man. "Don't try to find your Murasaki here."

My cheeks reddened even further. Never was I so grateful for a slip of my tongue. Apparently, I wasn't the only one here who read the Tale of Genji. The young man, presumably Hikaru, although Miss Kasen was probably making an allusion, opened his mouth.

"Sit!" Mistress Yukimi hissed, planting her hands on her hips. "Both of you. If either of you even think about causing trouble, I will see that you'll never set foot back in here."

"I don't think Casanova over there would mind much-"

"Anchoress Ibara-"

"Oh, alright," she said sitting next to me. "But the seducer sits at the other end of the table."

"Fine, I'm here for my mark anyway," Hikaru said, walking away. He stopped just long enough to flash me a grin. "But maybe after-"

"Walk away," Miss Kasen sang just loud enough so that Mistress Yukimi couldn't hear.

"Fine." He sat down at the far end of the table. Occasionally, he'd stop glaring at Miss Kasen long enough to keep the blush burning in my cheeks.

The Rose Hermit leaned over, draping an arm around my shoulder. Whispering low into my ear, she said, "I don't know who you are, but you can't fool me. Your disguise is better than most, but I can still tell that you're too young to be here."

I gulped. "How can you tell?"

"Really, do you think you're the first girl to go looking for trouble?" she said, laughing as she winked. "Or the first to find it when she's brought more attention to herself than she expected? Just a word of advice from your new favorite aunt. You don't want that type of trouble, not for a few more years." She pointed towards Hikaru. "And Ariadne, his kind of trouble you never want."

"My name is Akemi," I stammered, trying to slide down low in my chair.

"Sure it is," Miss Kasen said, shaking her head. "Maybe Theseus and Ariadne will be my story tonight. Call it a cautionary tale."

"You mistake me," I said. "I'm not here for him or anyone else."

"So you're really here for your mark?" Miss Kasen said. I merely nodded. On stage, Miss Reisen hammered out one last flourish to the audience's polite applause. The moon rabbit stood, curtsied, and then wheeled the dulcimer off the stage. "Oh, good, we're about to begin."

A bell chimed three times.

"Stand up," Miss Kasen whispered as she did the same. I got to my feet, my hands instinctively clutching the sides of my skirts.

A door opened in the back, and Princess Houraisan walked down the aisle towards the stage. Lady Yakumo followed close behind Gensokyo's most famous storyteller, her golden tails swaying with each step. Originally, Countess Yakumo held sway as part of the Taller's Founding Court, but Lady Ran had quickly taken her place. Each of the Ladies regularly took a turn on stage, and Lady Ran was acclaimed as the premier storyteller of Clan Yakumo. Besides, it probably interfered with Lady Yukari's naps.

The final Lady of the Taller floated behind even Lady Ran. Countess Saigyouji's fan could not hide her smile as she waved to the audience. Hikaru didn't try to sneak a smile to me as the ghostly countess joined Princess Kaguya and Lady Ran at the foot of the stage. I'm not sure why, but that bothered me.

The Court of the Eternal Moon curtsied to Mistress Yukimi, who, after, returning the curtsy, descended to the floor. The Mistress of the Stage talked in whispers to each member of the Court. I assumed that they were exchanging greetings until Mistress Yukimi's arm swept out towards Hikaru, Miss Kasen, and me. The Ladies turned around and settled in three ornate chairs at the stage's edge, while Mistress Yukimi resumed her station on the stage.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the esteemed Court of the Eternal Moon bids you welcome to the Taller de Lluna Eterna," Mistress Yukimi announced. Only then did the audience take their seats.

"Was all that necessary?" I whispered to Miss Kasen as we sat down.

"It builds a mystique," Miss Kasen said, shrugging. "Otherwise, would this be any different from telling tales around a campfire?" I could see her point; I wouldn't have sneaked out of the house if not for the prestige of the Mark of the Eternal Moon.

"Does the Court wish the honor of our stage?" Mistress Yukimi asked.

Lady Ran smiled. "We would give tonight's honor to Miss Alice Margatroid." I had learned early in my questioning that once a storyteller earned her mark, the Ladies could call on you to perform at any time in if you were present in the audience. Most considered it a small cost for the perks the prestige of the mark conveyed outside the Taller. Besides, to be a storyteller, you had to tell stories.

Miss Alice nodded as she rose. A quick curtsy later, and she said, "I accept the honor, but beg the indulgence of the final performance."

"Of course," Princess Kaguya said. It took time for even a master puppeteer like Miss Alice to prepare her shows. "Mistress of the Stage, who waits at the table tonight?"

Mistress Yukimi said, "Anchoress Ibara and two who seek the Mark of the Eternal Moon."

"You aren't going for your mark? Did you already win it?" I asked Miss Kasen.

The Rose Hermit shook her head and smiled. "Sometimes a job done well is reward enough."

"But-"

"What do I need with titles or money?" the anchoress said. "Now, good company..." She looked up at the stage. Mistress Yukimi held out her hand towards the Rose Hermit. "Can you do me a favor?"

"I guess."

"Could you watch her while I'm up there?" She dropped a reddish-brown rodent into my hands. The little ball of fur looked up at me and licked my thumb. "The rabbits here aren't comfortable with my pets, and she gets lonely when I leave her at the table."

I laughed as the ferret-like mouse ran up my arm and curled around my neck like a stole. "Sure. What's her name?"

But Mistress Yukimi ushered Miss Kasen onto the stage before she could answer.

"Ah, Anchoress Ibara, what lesson do you have for us today?" Lady Yuyuko purred as Mistress Yukimi left the Rose Hermit alone on the wooden platform.

"Your Ladyship, I'd never claim your stage for a mere sermon," Miss Kasen said with a smirk.

"Not when you have the rest of Gensokyo." Lady Yuyuko hid her face with her fan, but she sounded like she was bantering with a long absent friend.

"Even I have to take a break now and again."

"'How many of you can catch a fly!'" a young girl's voice chanted. Out in the audience, a familiar straw hat bobbed above the sea of bodies. Miss Kasen rolled her eyes and pleaded silently with the Court. Princess Kaguya just smiled serenely and nodded. The Rose Hermit sighed, cleared her throat, and sang.

Rambo Frog travels by the moon,

Meets with Mister Red Raccoon.

Soon they're joined by the Tortoise and Hare

To make sure the animals all play fair.

A fight's broke out by the waterhole,

The natives have all lost control.

Froggy's boys all sound their cry,

"How many of you can catch a fly!"

The song sounded like something that the wolf tengu would sing on a march, although the soldiers would have chosen something bawdier. With relish, Miss Kasen took the crowd step by step and blow by blow through the animals' brawl, stopping regularly to lead in the shout, "How many of you can catch a fly!" With one last shout of the refrain, the song ended.

Miss Kasen held up her hand before the applause could start. "Now that we've had our fun," she said, pointedly ignoring the bouncing straw hat in the crowd. She waited until the murmurs in the audience faded to silence. Only then, in hushed tones, did she speak of a kitsune, on that fateful day when the fox-maiden fell in love with a man.

I could tell by the twitching of her tails that Miss Kasen had caught Lady Ran's attention. The Lady Fox loved listening to animal stories almost as much as Miss Kasen loved to tell them. But it was quickly evident that, while Miss Kasen could charm an audience, she lacked a certain... spark of artistry needed to truly set herself apart. Like the difference between steak and Wagyu beef. Yet I found myself so caught up in the fox-maiden's trials that I almost didn't see Hikaru sliding across the bench towards me.

The fox woman wept as her lover died, and Miss Kasen curtsied, leaving the stage in silence. The audience clapped and several dabbed away tears from their eyes, myself included.

Hikaru slipped away from me before Miss Kasen's feet touched the floor. As she walked to the performer's table, the anchoress took one look at the tears on my face and shook her head. "'Theseus will break your heart," she whispered, sitting down.

I looked at her, dumfounded. Blotting away the last of my tears, I said. "I don't get it."

"I knew I should have told 'Theseus and Ariadne' tonight," Miss Kasen muttered, taking her pet off of my shoulder.

"But I enjoyed the kitsune's tale."

The Rose Hermit smiled. "Well, there's that, at least."

"The first candidate for the Mark of the Eternal Moon approaches," Mistress Yukimi intoned from the stage. She stepped away, and Hikaru walked onto the stage, adjusting the tuning keys of a guitar. Like the hammered dulcimer, the guitar sang with more resonance than the biwa or shamisen I was used to. Mistress Yukimi was right, it was an acquired taste. But music and storytelling were a perfect compliment, matching and building upon each other with such power that Princess Kaguya had to regularly remind musicians that not all songs were stories.

Hikaru strummed out a few chords. His guitar didn't sound like many of the recordings Sanae had brought over from Outside. I think she would have called the style Spanish, although I wouldn't have recognized anything but the name. Slowly, he settled into a complex melody and counter-melody picked against each other. Was he about to repeat Merlin's mistake?

He sang, first of star-crossed lovers and then of their sad fate. Each note of the guitar an each word tugged at me. As he looked at me from up on the stage, Hikaru sang of Romeo's first sight of Juliet. I was enthralled; it was as if I were Juliet and he was singing straight to me. But then it was Juliet's turn to sing.

There is a tradition among traveling artists that, when gathered to swap tales between each other, a performer would often leave a character or two's parts unspoken. This let other performers join in and fill the vacancies, enriching the story as the two performers played off of each other. As he doubled the refrain, he nodded to me. I froze; I didn't know Juliet's part.

But another did. Lady Yuyuko stood and sang in a high, clear soprano. I could easily imagine her as the love struck Juliet's living spirit, returned to the world to weep over her fate. She embodied the role with a vitality that Hikaru's Romeo could not match.

His face blanching, Hikaru stood gaping, unable to play his guitar as the ghost transformed his song into something otherworldly. As the Lady of the White Jade Tower sang a question for Romeo, Hikaru closed his eyes for a moment and walked off the stage and out of the Taller.

I wanted to follow him out, to make sure he was okay, but I couldn't. I'd lose my chance for the storyteller's mark. Besides, Miss Kasen clamped a heavy hand on my shoulder before I could move.

The tradition of the Taller states that no story should remain unfinished. Miss Reisen stood and sang a Romeo to match Lady Yuyuko's Juliet until the two lovers joined each other in Death's embrace.

"Let me go," I said, shrugging out of her grasp.

Miss Kasen leveled a steady, emotionless glare. "Remember why you are here."

"He meant nothing to me," I said, fighting the blush creeping into my cheeks. I'd only given the briefest of thoughts to failing. To see Hikaru so completely outclassed by Miss Yuyuko that he just quit brought all sorts of festering doubts to my mind. Sure, tradition stated that you could try again and again for the mark, but that meant sneaking out of the house again. I wasn't a bad girl, and if my parents found out…

Miss Kasen's eyes narrowed as a squirmed. "I wasn't talking about him. Don't listen to your fears. You have to do your best, and you can't do that if you're afraid."

"How do you do it, then?" I could feel my pulse hammering away. For some reason, telling me to not be afraid always brought out the opposite effect.

"Breathe." Four long breaths later, and my heart settled down. The Rose Hermit smiled. "It gets easier the more you try. 'To become brave, do brave things.'"

"Who said that?" I asked.

Miss Kasen just smiled. "Another story for another night." She seemed to be full of those stories tonight.

"What makes you think I'll be back?"

She laughed. "You're one of us. Do you really think you'll be able to stop telling tales? Even if your only audience is a sleeping child?"

I thought about the ink bottles and reams of paper stuffed under by bed. Papa always said that I'd keep writing until my fingers wore out. "You may-"

"The second candidate for the Mark of the Eternal Moon approaches," Mistress Yukimi intoned.

"Relax," Miss Kasen said as she guided me to the stage. The snowy rabbit took my hand and for the first time I stepped onto the most hallowed stage in Gensokyo. Where a Princess of the Moon held court, and where such greats as Alice Margatroid and Keine Kamishirasawa won their fame, and where many more had failed. Now it was my turn.

I looked out at the audience. Seeing every eye on me sent a shiver down my spine. I did my best work with the writer's brush and paper. What if my voice wasn't strong enough? Taller rules prohibited reading from a manuscript.

My eyes searched the crowd until they caught Princess Kaguya's. The serene beauty smiled and nodded to me. And then, in that moment, there was nothing else but for me to tell the one story I knew better than my own skin. My voice faltered with the first few words, but it soon found its strength…

Long ago, before the Lord Regent Fuhito Fujiwara first drew breath, before the Hatha netweavers taught the sons of Yamato their craft, before even the gods of Suwa and Yamato shook the heavens in mortal combat, a king sat in his hold, worried.

In those days, every hilltop and river held its own king and its own gods and chaos filled the land. Yet this king was wise and through his strength, his lands knew peace. But the king's heart was troubled, for his beloved son was unlucky and mocked by the people.

"How can I change my son's luck, that I might hand over the kingdom to him?" the king asked. He remembered the fishing traps set along the river and thought, "if my son should bring home a bountiful first catch, surely the people would see that his luck has turned."

Against the counsel of his lords, the king sent his son to the fishermen's traps to bring in the first catch of the year. If his son succeeded, the king would pass his crown to him. But if he failed, the king would seek another successor. So the king waited for his son's return. But that night, a storm ravaged the land. The king's heart fell, for he knew there would be no fish brought home after the storm.

The next morning, the king watched for his son. And indeed, as his son led his horse into camp, it was as the king feared. The bags of fish were empty, as were the king's hopes. Yet the king's son was cheerful, unmindful of the kingdom he had certainly lost.

"My son, what tidings do you have?" the king asked, perplexed.

"Father, I left seeking one fortune, but I return having found one even greater," the son said, pulling a sealskin bag from his saddle. The king eyed the bag, hoping that it held jewels or gold. "The weir was empty, but when I looked closer, I saw this." He opened the bad to reveal a beautiful blue-eyed baby girl, quiet yet attentive as she held the king's eye. Her smile captivated the king's heart as he knew it had his son's.

"What manner of fortune is this?"

"A new one, born alongside my daughter." And in the days to come, it proved to be so, for the son quickly found a wife and a warrior's name.

The king, seeing his son's resolve to adopt the young child, asked, "What will you name her?"

"Miare, for she appeared in front of me."

And so Miare was first announced to this world. As she became a young woman, she grew in beauty, grace, and wisdom, until she caught the eye of nearby prince. But that romance and how she earned the name she is known to by history are stories for another time...

I stood on the small wooden stage, wincing at the memory of each stammered word. I couldn't meet Princess Kaguya's eyes. Lady Ran sat still, not even twitching a single one of her many tails. It didn't matter; I could never read the fox maiden's expressions anyway. Lady Yuyuko's fan snapped open in front of her face. Was that mirth I saw in the ghost princess's eyes?

"Next time, come as yourself, Lady Akyuu." I jumped as Mistress Yukimi whispered in my ear.

"How did you know?" I asked. But the Mistress of the Stage only pointed out to the audience. The entire Taller waited, like me, holding their breath for the Princess's verdict.

***

Author's notes:

Taller de Lluna Eterna is Catalan for Studio of the Eternal Moon.

I wanted to try something where Kaguya wasn't either the foil to Mokou or a shut-in. Since she has a taste for storytelling and is a lady of means and stature, it seemed obvious that she would have done what many noble women have done throughout history and provide a place for the best and brightest to meet.

Akyuu's story is a re-imagining of the Celtic bard Taliesin's discovery, just shaped to fit Gensokyo and Japanese lore. And, yes, certain scholars think Hieda no Are was a woman.

Kasen's song is from "The Hap'n' Frog of Cambreadth" by Heather Alexander.

Thanks go to Captain Vulcan for prereading.


	3. Prodigal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A favor for Keine turns out to be much more than Mokou expected.

Lady Mokou Fujiwara crept low, hiding in the shadow of the scarlet cloth wall. Much about the ornate tents nearby struck her as odd. Few outside Gensokyo would make buildings out of silk, fewer inside Gensokyo could afford to. And anyone profligate enough to build a small village out of finery would easily disturb the fragile peace.

The last thing Keine Kamishirasawa wanted as the protector of the humans in the Village was to see her friends and her charges hunted throughout the land. She had asked Mokou to find out who owned the tabernacle as well as their intentions. At least that way, she could prepare.

The immortal duchess padded softly along the wall of red. Of everything her father had done, Mokou appreciated only the time spent teaching her woodcraft. Chasing after Kaguya had proven to be as disastrous as betrothing her to a long gone saint. What considerable ability she had learned from her wastrel of a dad, her longstanding feud with Kaguya had honed into near supernatural skill. Not only could she slip through the forest without a sound, she instinctively knew where any animal, youkai, or human was in relation to her.

Silk parted behind her. Mokou spun around as an arm snaked across her waist. She threw elbows, but caught only air. A hand covered her mouth, muffling her screams.

"You're good. Look over there, though," a feminine voice hissed. Mokou's captor wrenched her neck until the immortal could see a shadow shrouded figure hop towards her. Squirming, she screamed again as she saw the death pallor clinging to the figure. "None of that now, or my darling jiang shi over there starts eating. I can sense your essence. She'll feed off of you for ages." Mokou froze, letting her unseen captor lead her through the hole in the silk wall.

***

"I apologize," Lady Seiga Kaku said, sitting behind a scholar's desk. The blue-clad missionary brushed characters onto a sheet of paper. "This is not the Way of hospitality, but then, you did not come to us as a guest."

Mokou sat upright and still on a wooden chair in the center of the blue tent. Behind her, the jiang shi cooed sweet nothings into her ear. The duchess longed to burn away the vampiric zombie's fetid breath from off her skin, if only to silence the monster's constant mutterings about how delicious Mokou would be. But anyone who could command a jiang shi would likely have worse waiting.

"You may go now, Yoshida," Seiga said, setting down her brush. She pulled out a bundle of cloth, untying it.

The zombie ceased her whispers. "Who will protect you, Lady Seiga?"

"I'm only thinking of you, my dear," the Daoist said with a smile. She made shooing motions with her hands. "You know what the Classic of Change can do to your kind. Besides, Futo will step in if she needs to."

"Vile book," Yoshika muttered, shrinking away from the desk. The jiang shi hopped outside the tent.

"I prefer the Way to Virtue, but there are things that only the Classic of Change can tell us," the ageless missionary said. She unwrapped the cloth, revealing a battered leather tome.

"What do you think you're going to do me?" Mokou asked, smiling through clenched teeth.

"I just want you to answer a few questions. The Classic of Change here will tell me if you're telling the truth." The Chinese noble held up six coins, three between the fingers of each hand. The coin toss would be used to generate a hexagram, and the diviner would consult the Classic of Change for the hexagram's meaning.

Mokou laughed deeply and freely, clutching her sides. "Go ahead, try."

Seiga frowned at the phoenix girl. Tossing the coins into one hand, she asked," What are you doing here?" Her free hand swept towards the tents and the tabernacle walls.

"I'm coming home from Grandma's," Mokou said, leaning back in the chair and smirking. "There was this wolf and a lumberjack-"

Seiga shook her head. "I don't need divination to tell me you're lying. Please, don't make me get Futo to help... refine your answers." As she spoke the noblewoman's name, lamps throughout the tent flared higher, hotter, and brighter.

"Fine," Mokou said with a sigh. "I thought I'd check out the new neighbors."

Seiga threw the coins on the desk. They rolled across the wood, coming to a stop. She gasped; all six coins stood upright on the narrow edge, neither heads nor tails.

"You weren't expecting that," Mokou said. Mirth filled the phoenix girl's voice.

The missionary snarled, throwing the coins again. Once again, the coins stood on edge. She thumbed through the leather-bound book, consulting the commentaries towards the end. "You're immortal," she hissed.

Mokou nodded, her smile widening. "It does tend to wreck divination."

"Futo!" Seiga bellowed, closing the book. She wrapped it in its cloth. "Get Lady Miko."

"I was listening," a calm regal voice rang out. A young woman in Imperial purple and white stepped through the divided silk door. A short straight sword centuries out of fashion hung from her belt.

Mokou gasped, she had see that sword and scabbard long ago, when she was still a girl. "That's the Seven Star Sword."

"A family heirloom, I assure you," the woman winced as she drew near. "I am Lady Miko Toyosatomimi."

"Pardon me if I don't get up," Mokou said, covering her eyes. Looking at Miko was like looking through a cloud. Something made the details all fuzzy.

"Are you unwell?" Miko said, kneeling next to the immortal.

"I'll be fine." The phoenix girl's vision swam as though she looked through tears.

The Lady of the tabernacle made a moue of concern. "Please, we can prepare a bed for you."

"Don't worry about me," Mokou said, inching away from Miko. She'd prove herself stronger than the delicate pampered ladies her father had pawed whenever her mother turned her gaze.

"Nonsense. A young woman of your stature deserves proper treatment. Would I be correct in assuming you are of the Fujiwara? You have something of their look about you."

Mokou nodded, the color running from her face. "Most people think I am of the Konoe."

Miko shook her head. "You remind me of the early Fujiwara from before the clan split into septs." She coughed into her hand. "I mean, of paintings I've seen of the clan founder."

"She's acting frail because she got caught," Seiga said, planting her fists on her hips. "I did catch her sneaking outside our walls."

"She's still a guest," Miko said, turning towards her retainer. "The Way of the Enlightened One insists on hospitality.

Mokou froze. "You follow the Eightfold Path?" she asked without thinking. Something deep within her memory welled up.

"I take shelter in the Enlightened One, his teachings, and his community."

Half-remembered lessons learned during her childhood at the feet of a saint flooded back. She looked again at the Lady of the Tabernacle, at the veil obscuring her from clear sight. "Maya," Mokou breathed. The Veil of Illusion, or the part of nature that masked reality. That saint had said that once you were aware of it, you could pierce it to see what it covered. She reached out, her fingers brushing against Miko's vest...

...the Veil of Illusion parted...

In the place of the young woman, a mature, broad-shouldered man knelt next to her. Broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, and handsome, he froze at her touch. Ignored by both the immortal lady and the lord, Seiga gasped.

"I know you," Mokou whispered, staring at the familiar face. "I saw you all the time as a child. You used to teach me." Her eyes snapped wide open, and red flooded her cheeks. "You're Prince Shotoku, the hidden Emperor!" She fell to the ground, prostrating herself before him.

"Please, rise, there's no need for this," the prince said, standing up.

Mokou sat back on her heels and turned her head away. Tears welled in her eyes. "Why?" Ancient promises filled her mind, including the one duty her father had groomed her for, forgotten by all when the lout first chased Kaguya.

Shotoku sighed, folding his arms across his chest. "I had to hide my form, lest the world see me as an abomination. I could only advise the Emperor from the sidelines as my health faded, and then my influence. Your forefather, Duke Fuhito Fujiwara, sheltered me as best he could, but he couldn't prevent the last of the Soga from sealing me and the last of my court away."

Mokou blinked away her tears. "My father failed in many things. I will not." She stood up and reared her hand back. Shotoku's head snapped back as she slapped him. "I am Lady Mokou Fujiwara, the last living child of Duke Fuhito Fujiwara." The immortal held the prince's head in her hands. Standing on her toes, she whispered, "I was promised to you by my father long ago, and unlike him, I will fulfill my duty." The phoenix girl gave him a short, chaste kiss.

Seiga grabbed the phoenix girl by her shoulders and threw her to the ground. A knife appeared, pressed against Mokou's throat. "Say the word, my lord. She may be immortal, but she will learn to regret-"

Prince Shotoku help up a hand. "No harm is to come to her."

"Why?" the missionary said, quivering. She dropped the knife.

"She's my bride."

***

Author's notes:

"What if" is such a dangerous thing, especially if you have four hours to indulge it. 

I tried to bring some of what I am learning from a Great Minds of Eastern Thought course into this. Of course, being an outsider, I made a complete mess of it. All mistakes are my own.


	4. Favor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know it's a sin to tell a lie, still you keep saying 'I love you...'"

Idly swirling a too sweet German white wine, Ran Yakumo sat in the corner of Miko Toyosatomimi's bar, slumped over the table. Around her, a line of empty glasses lay like fallen soldiers. Blotting at her eyes, she drained the last of the glass in her hand.

A shadow fell across the fox. She looked up, her cheeks slick, into the stern eyes of a tall fairy waitress. The vixen flashed three fingers.

"If I had my way, I'd cut you off now," the fairy said. A distant cousin of Lily, she placed the empty glasses onto her serving tray. Ran flashed a set of needle-like teeth. "And for that, I should just run you straight out of here. Be glad that Miko said you could stay."

The vixen flashed three fingers once more as the waitress shook her head and walked off. Cradling her head in the crook of her arm, Ran took off her cap and covered her face. The damp cloth muffled her faint sobs.

"Ms. Yakumo," the waitress said, returning with three glasses of a chilled Yamanashi red wine. Setting two glasses on the heavy oak, she said, "Your kit called. She wants to know when you're coming home."

Ran's free arm swept across the table, showering the fairy in spilled wine. The waitress shrieked with the cold and again as she looked down at her newly red dress. Sliding the last glass onto the tabletop, she ran, disappearing into the women's restroom.

Three clawed fingers tapped against the table. The red wine sat undisturbed.

"What's your poison?"

"I'm surprised Miko let you through the door," Ran said, opening a bloodshot eye. She stared up at Mamizou Futatsuiwa for a moment before covering her face with her cap.

The trickster tanuki picked up the wineglass and sniffed it. "At least you don't scrimp on the good stuff."

The vixen's ears twitched. "Don't you have a shrinemaiden to bother?"

Mamizou snatched the white cloth from Ran's face. The vixen flinched from the sudden light. "Nue said that you needed help. And as much as I'd love to see a fox drink herself to death, I still owe her a favor or two."

"Lucky me," Ran deadpanned before a sigh.

Mamizou's smiled grew as she slid into the chair opposite to Ran. "Quite. She was going to ask Kasen."

Ran groaned and the color drained from her cheeks. She threw back the wineglass, emptying it with one gulp. "Where's that waitress?" she said, wiping her wine-stained lips with a cloth napkin.

"Let's keep it to tea," the tanuki said, placing the empty glass out of reach. "That is the traditional drink between enemies, is it not?"

The vixen pointed towards the door. "Go ask the shrinemaiden."

"She's not a fan of my impression of her," Mamizou said with a shrug. The tanuki had dressed as Reimu during a spellcard duel. "There's no accounting for taste out here. For instance, you know better than to drink pop-skull by the tub, even if it's higher quality than a mere art student will see in her lifetime. What're you trying to forget?"

Ran sat up, leveling a cold stare at her rival. "You're serious."

"Nue says that sorrow shared is sorrow divided," Mamizou said. She rested her chin on her hands. "I think she's spent too much time at that temple, personally."

Ran sighed and picked up the empty glass, watching the light play through the crystal. "To desire is to suffer."

Mamizou waved at another of Lily's cousins. "So you go to the same temple as well."

The vixen sighed, setting the glass upside down on the table. "I'm acting like some newly besotted kit."

"So, pretty little fox-maiden, who holds your heart?" The tanuki ordered two cups of tea as a fairy passed.

Ran sighed, closing her eyes. "A human male," she said. Rose flooded her cheeks. " I should have known better. My sisters warned me long ago."

"What's the big deal?"

"There's countless tales of fox-maidens falling in love with human men. None of them end well for the fox." She slumped over the table. "I was so certain this time would be different."

"I meant about human males. Where's the tail?" Mamizou said, taking a tea cup from the waitress. "No tail, no date, at least in tanuki circles."

"The flame that burns briefest..." Ran said, wistfully. She shook her head. "Forget it, it's a fox thing. You tanuki wouldn't understand." She sipped at her tea and made a face. Setting the cup down, she stirred a pair of sugar cubes into the drink.

"So, what went wrong this time?"

"That damned cuddle-bunny floozy," Ran snarled. Her fist slammed against the table. "He had his arms around her. That useless, no-good bunny-" the vixen trailed off, muttering coarsely under her breath.

Mamizou's eyes widened. "You lost to prey?"

"You know, I don't need your help to feel miserable," Ran said, baring her teeth.

"You do have quite the pity party going on," Mamizou said, sipping at her cup. "Forget about him. You should find a nice fox, settle down, and as much as it pains me, have kits."

"Forget it. Not as long as Yukari is my mistress," Ran said with a cold laugh. "Watching over her and Chen is bad enough. Do you really want me to bring kits into that?"

The tanuki added raw honey to her cup. "Not really. One of you is bad enough. I don't want to be around when mini-Ran goes into her first 'I found my true love' funk."

Like clockwork, the bar descended into a periodic awkward silence. For a minute, both the tanuki and the fox found their drinks more interesting than conversation.

"What does she have that I don't?" Ran said with a sigh. She leaned back and slid the teacup and saucer away.

"Well, I can say that Little Bunny Fufu doesn't have your glorious tails," Mamizou said, settling her chin on her hands and smiling. "Honey, you'd make a wonderful fur coat."

"And you'd make a wonderful cap on a hunter's head," Ran said. The vixen laughed freely and loudly. "Thanks."

Mamizou waved the compliment away. "Don't mention it. Seriously. Don't. I have my reputation among the tanuki to consider. I don't want your wanton ways rubbing off on me."

"You couldn't catch a man even if he fell into your arms," Ran said, smirking.

"Nice to see you're in a better mood," the tanuki said. "But I think I might strike a blow for predators everywhere and steal your boyfriend from Reisen."

"Have the two-timer."

"Does Prince Charming have a name?"

"Hikaru."

Mamizou's eyes widened as she whistled. "As in the same one Lord Hieda caught sniffing around his daughter? The guy who managed to court Alice, Patchouli, and Marisa all at the same time? No thanks. Let the bunny floozy keep him if she can. He's probably making a pass at Kaguya as we speak."

"Then he's in for a surprise," Ran said, shaking her head. "How could I have been so foolish?"

"Well, you do work for Yukari. Face it, if you fell for his tricks, your taste in men sucks."

"It's not like you have suitors lining up outside your door."

"Nue scares them away. It amuses her," the tanuki said. "Besides, you did say that most human-fox relationships ended in tragedy."

"I guess even a tanuki can get something right. Will wonders ever cease?" Ran said, feigning surprise.

"Just giving you an outsider's perspective," Mamizou said with a shrug.

"I'll have you know I can stop loving humans whenever I want," Ran said. She froze, a sly smile lighting up her face. Behind her, nine tails beat against her chair. "Just not tonight."

Mamizou looked over her shoulder. Sure, the new guy chatting with the fairy hostess was handsome, in a tall, dark sort of way, but the lack of a tail killed any interest the tanuki might have. Ran, however, glided away from the table, her form already shifting away from the tear and wine-stained wretch to the glamorous fox maiden she normally was. "Don't come crying to me when this falls apart," the tanuki said, shaking her head. She drained the last of her tea. "Nue had only one favor."

***

Author's Notes:

Folklore is full of fox-maidens falling in love with humans. I couldn't help but play with the idea, especially since it gave Ran something else to do besides be obsessed with Chen.


	5. For What We Receive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A musing on revenge, duty, and justice.

The hand axe in my hand bit deep into the thick branch. With a series of deft strokes, it stripped the new fallen tree of its branches. I stepped away from the tree, and wiped sweat from my brow. Singing, my brothers and sisters fell upon the log, scratching away the bark with long handled chisels.

We had been doing this simple work for weeks. After the River clan's home had flooded away, many of our cousins sought refuse with those of us who lived in the mountains. We gladly provided them with food and shelter. Let it not be said that the Mountain clan abandoned family in need. Some returned to the river, but more stayed, begging for adoption into the Mountain clan. With a host of new brothers and sisters, it wouldn't do to let our new brothers and sisters languish in tents.

I didn't mind the work. As much as kappa love tinkering, there's something right about working with my hands, toiling amidst the smells of tree sap, sawdust, and leaves. Some would call such simple work holy. I am not a priest, so I will let those who can argue settle that question. Meanwhile, someone has to build houses for those who no longer have them.

I walked towards a makeshift table and filled my canteen from a bin of cold spring water. It would only be moments before crews dragged in the next tree to be turned into logs. Behind me, the cheerful work songs of my people fell silent, voice by voice. I spun around, expecting to see a tree that rivaled the mighty redwoods I had once seen a picture of.

Instead, my coworkers stood silent, ringing one of the kappa mothers as she stood before me. All eyes could have been on me, but my eyes settled on the young woman draped on the mother's back. I reached out and helped the mother set her on the ground. Two girls ran out, covering the young woman's legs with a blanket. I rolled my eyes at such River clan foolishness; no Mountain clan male worthy of the name would take advantage of her modesty under these circumstances.

Unconscious, she shuddered at my touch. I removed her hat, as the poor girl deserved what comfort we could bring her.. From the gasps of the crowd, you'd have that I had taken her dress off instead. I have no patience for such River clan silliness.

My face fell rigid when I saw her face. I knew this girl, even if I didn't remember her name. She was one of the prettiest newcomers from the River clan and one of the few blondes among our people. No, not River clan; she's Mountain clan now.

A weight settled on my heart. "What happened?" I asked, facing the kappa mother.

The village elder shook her hand. With a moue of distaste, she held out her hand. Crumpled paper rested in her palm. Someone had brushed a prayer to the old gods on it. I recognized the brushwork; charms like these littered the land after an incident. "She tried to seal her." The slight emphasis on "she" left no ambiguity as to whom the mother talked about.

I drew in a quick breath. "Then-"

"I call you to your duty."

I nodded and fiddled with my hand axe. The metal head fell off the short handle and into my hand. My people had long treasured the scientific learning of the Dutch, but a few of us had adopted more from the ancient trades than just their learning. My family came from one of those septs, and followed laws that we had believed had been set down before time itself. The wounded woman resting on the ground before me was now kin, and my actions were now bound by those laws.

The crowd parted before me as I made my way to a pile of finished wood. I took a long pole, some three meters in length, and set my axe head on it. Voices murmured as I secured the axe head in place. No kappa man had put a long handle on an axe in anger for years. The spell card rules had erased the need.

I stood up and hefted the poleax in my hands. No longer a simple tool, I now held a weapon of war.

"She favors you," the mother said, whispering in my ear. "She wanted me to introduce her at the next festival."

My pulse quickened, but I fought it back. "I must focus on my duty now."

"And after?" the mother said, pursing her lips. She had her own duties, as no champion of my people could be allowed to remain unmarried for long.

"Pray to the Swift Sure Hand that there is an after," I whispered.

As I walked out of the village, I could feel the eyes of my people upon me. Many no doubt wondered whether or not I would return.

In truth, so did I.

***

I walked along the path to the remote shrine openly and without guile. My axe shone in the sunlight, unadorned by the leather bonds of peace. The shrinemaiden waited at the steps beneath her shrine's awning, sipping at a mug of tea. Lesser humans have run from a kappa under arms, but my foe was Reimu Hakurei, the lovely Shrinemaiden of Paradise. No doubt, in her mind, she had faced worse.

As I drew near, marching along the dirt road, she set her tea down. Standing and stretching, she said, "So your sisters couldn't handle their own business. Very well, how many spell cards?"

"None," I said, shaking my head. I could not indulge such foolishness; no man in Gensokyo would resort to the showiness of danmaku. There was no strength to it.

Her eyes narrowed as they settled on my poleax. Reaching for her tasseled prayer staff, she said, "You're a little short for an assassin."

I drove the butt of my poleax into the earth. "I am the Mountain clan kappa's kinsman-redeemer. I have come to call your actions to account."

She stepped back, staring incredulously at me. Charms appeared in her free hand. "For what?"

"You tried to seal away on of my kin. Her injuries cry for justice." My eyes bore into hers, yet she held my gaze. "'Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life.'"

"Eye for an eye makes the world go blind," she snapped.

I snarled at the old saw. Few people truly understood the old saying. "Eye for an eye is the only thing keeping my axe from taking your pretty little head," I snapped back. Rash words to be certain. I had not come to slay her, if it could be avoided.

"Is that so?" She raised an eyebrow and looked me over. I have had my measure taken by many a foe before, but this felt different.

"Punishment must fit the crime, or else there is no justice," I said. My body was as rigid as the poleax next to me. Nothing kept her from trying to seal me away at any moment.

A slight smile crossed her face. "She's a lucky woman to have someone like you stand up for her." The charms vanished from her hand. Setting her prayer staff down, she smoothed her skirts and sat on the edge of the steps. Patting the stone next to her, she said, "Come, set your weapon down and sit with me. With luck, we will have need of neither."

I sat next to her, resting my poleax on stone. Like Reimu, I kept my weapon in reach. However, if the conversation went sour, I'd rely on the knife at my belt instead.

The shrinemaiden stared at me, her gaze occasionally dropping to my hands. I might have come with honor, but it was obvious she was used to those that didn't. "Honestly, why have you come here?"

"Someone has to speak for those without a voice," I said. I looked her up and down. The Shrinemaiden of Paradise was known to be crafty and formidable. What surprise might she have hidden away?

"What do you think I do for my people?"

"Seal away mine," I answered quickly. "Do you think that the strong should do whatever they wish, leaving the weak to suffer?"

She tilted her head toward the side as we both pretended we weren't watch the other for signs of betrayal. "Odd words coming from a youkai. Isn't that exactly what you all believe?"

"I believe that you still have to answer for my kinswoman's injuries."

She sighed and started out to the horizon, for once taking her eyes away from me. "If your people would have left mine alone, I wouldn't have tried to seal her." Sadness crept into her voice. "It's the way of life here. You hurt one of mine, I hurt one of yours. Now you're on my doorstop ready to take this cycle another step further. Will there ever be an end?"

"Admitting your guilt is a start."

She turned back towards me with a wan smile. "So determined, unlike your sisters. I hope Marisa doesn't get her hands on you," Reimu said with a chuckle. She grew serious. "She will, if you persist with this cycle of retribution."

I shook my head. "I noticed you're willing to stop only after you yourself were threatened."

Reimu laughed freely. "Such confidence. Maybe I found something that interests me more. Your kind might be more than just an appetite on legs."

"You humans are so arrogant. You think that since you're a little lower than the angels, you are free to hunt us like animals. A little less pride, and maybe there wouldn't be enmity between us." As I spoke, I shot to my feet and towered over the shrinemaiden. The old slur against youkai fueled an ancient anger, one I could ill afford.

"Angels?" Reimu said, rolling the unfamiliar word on her tongue. She pointed at me with the hand closest to her staff. "You have Hidden depths."

"I seek justice for my kinswoman, not vengeance. If I can find peace between our races, make it so no one else gets hurt..." I trailed off. I sat again, staring down the same path I had earlier marched upon. An uneasy silence settled over the shrine.

"I could intercede with Kannon for her. Perhaps the goddess of compassion will restore her." This time, it was Reimu's turn to leap to her feet.

I shook my head. "My people would not stand for that."

"You said you wanted peace," Reimu said in a small voice. The shrinemaiden's eyes pleaded with mine.

"We've suffered under the false Maria," I whispered. Maria-Kannon had begun as a secret symbol of the Hidden, but quickly became a symbol of persecution and death.

Reimu winced and turned away, pink rushing through her cheeks. "I didn't mean-"

"You didn't know."

"I suspected-"

I held up my hand and the shrine maiden fell silent. "Let mercy triumph over judgment and think no more of it."

Reimu finally met my eyes. "Can mercy last in a land red in tooth and claw?"

"Perhaps that's where it's needed most." Instantly, I knew how to satisfy my duty. I stood up and held out my hand towards her. "Come with me and find out. See the pain you caused. Swear that you will not cause it again without need and receive our pledge to do the same. "

Reimu pursed her lips and looked me over once more. "Kappa, you have an odd sense of mercy and justice."

"Would you rather we tried to kill each other like the civilized people of Gensokyo?" I said lightly. For the first time since leaving the work camp, I risked a smile.

"I'll pass, thank you," Reimu said, giggling behind her flowing sleeve. The shrinemaiden drew near enough that I almost took a step back. Lifting her head towards mine, she said, "On one condition."

"I don't think-" I began. Immediately, my focus was drawn towards the shrinemaiden inches away.

"Have dinner with me."

I stood speechless, my mind caught in a whirling maelstrom of thought.

Reimu stepped to my side and wrapped her arm around mine. "Aren't you going to take me to your kinswoman?"

Her words shocked me out of my confusion. "Of course."

"Then it's a date," she said, beaming.

"Why?" I asked, uncertain as to what had just happened. We walked down the path away from the shrine.

"Isn't it the custom of your people to eat together after making a solemn agreement?" Reimu said. I answered with a nod. "You intrigue me, kappa. Not many men speak of the greater things. Fewer still are willing to stand up to me because of them."

"It was my duty," I said. "If not me, who else?"

"Now I really don't want Marisa to get her hands on you," she murmured. "You haven't given me your name."

"Tomasu."

"One of the Twelve. Hidden depths, indeed."

As we walked back to my village, chatting amicably beneath a setting sun, I wondered just how I was going to explain the girl on my arms to the village elders. After all, they expected me to bring her head.

For what we are about to receive, may we be grateful.

***

Author's notes:

Thanks go to Captain Vulcan, Mephiles666, Hunter97, and Wolfsbane706 for prereading. All mistakes are my own.

Thanks to everyone reading this for indulging one of my experimental moods. I will be focusing on my series again over the next few months.


	6. Southern Cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out in Micronesia, an aerospace technician finds a couple boat bunnies looking for a ride.

There are traditions to tales like mine. Traditions, that, like the laws of the sea, men avoid to their peril. As this is a sea story, let's begin with the proper invocation.

So there I was, no shit, at the Tsukishima pier...

* * *

Thirty years ago, a young aerospace engineer could look forward to a long career in Houston or Florida's Space Coast. These days, everyone says, "Go West, young man." As in so far west, it becomes east once more. With the advent of the commercial space race, every little Micronesian island chain is busy courting space companies to come and build launch sites. Oh, and incidentally, provide numerous jobs for people who have little in the way of natural resources or industry. The companies, such as SpaceX and my own, are just as eager; Micronesia is in a perfect spot for space launches.

Why, you ask? Look, pal, this is a sea story, not an aerospace class. Just push the "I Believe" button and let's move on.

Anyway, I got swept up in this Micronesian space race not long after leaving the Army. Five years of tax-free pay without anyone shooting at me? Sign me right up! It's satisfying work, but the headhunter forgot a few details in the process.

It's boring out here. Look, Tsukishima is a tropical paradise, but not the cute girls in bikinis type. More like the old men escaping the evil ex-wife type. (No wonder I fit in so well.) There really is only so much beer to drink, snorkeling to do, and diving before island fever sets in. Sometimes you just have to get away. Unfortunately, Hawaii, Australia, and Thailand are just too far away. And expensive as well.

So, thank God for the boat rentals. For eighty bucks a day, I can take a small boat out into the atoll for a time of peace, quiet, and all the fishing and diving that I might feel the need to do.

As I said, so there I was, on the pier of Tsukishima, readying my boat for the day's trip. I wasn't planning on doing anything but taking my boat out to St. Vincent. I'm sure the islanders have their own name for the island, but if you went into the local Rumrunners bar, none of the English-speaking locals would recognize it. Not that I needed the name to anchor off the island and work on my sunburn as well as reading through the local "bestseller".

Okay, that's a bit generous. One of my co-workers found some lurid little thriller that took place on Tsukishima. Some little B-movie monster hunter schlock, but whoever wrote it had to have lived on the island. She had gotten too many of the details right. Well, except for the gremlin and the transforming into monsters part. Still, reading it was a rite of passage for people on the island, and it would be a perfect way to kill a lazy morning. My hands moved mechanically through the tasks of seamanship as I dreamed about open seas.

"Hey, mister, that's a big boat you've got."

There are fewer pleasant ways to awoke from a reverie than the purring of a young woman's voice. I looked up towards the dock. Two girls stood on the causeway One, tall and willowy, rolled her eyes as she carried a small Igloo cooler. Her friend, a petite and dark-haired munchkin, winked at me. Both girls wore light-blue sundresses and wide-brimmed straw hats. Willowy would have made a great fashion model, but by the way her friend moved, I could tell she'd be a handful.

Now before you think this tale will take a dark turn towards the territory of Penthouse Letters or late-night Cinemax, let me be perfectly clear. Even though the saucy munchkin purred a seductive game, both of them were boat bunnies. That meant hands off.

Boat bunnies were young women that loved sun, sea, and boats. Sure, many of them traded on their looks to get a lift from one island to the next, but not many wanted to get kissed by anything other than the sun. Still, many men picked them up for the pleasure of a young woman's company (and the eye candy). Those few who let their hands wander could ruin the deal for everyone. Boat bunnies fled the islands where those animals lived. That meant no more eye candy, which tended to make  _everyone_  really upset.

"Where are you ladies heading?" I asked.

"Rumrunners," the tall one said. She set her Igloo down to tuck her long pale hair under her hat.

I pursed my lips in thought. I wasn't planning on heading out there, but Rumrunners on Matamoros wasn't that far from St. Vincent. And they did make a decent cheeseburger. Jimmy Buffet was right, there's nothing like a cheeseburger in paradise. (He's wrong about Heinz's 57, though.) And it had been a while since I talked to anyone besides engineers. "I'm heading that way. You girls in a hurry?"

"If we were, we'd be at the heliport instead," Willowy said.

"Hop in," I said, beckoning the girls with a wave. They stepped into the boat with the practiced ease of ladies familiar with the water. Sunlight glinted off of a carrot necklace that the munchkin wore.

Willowy shook her head, but her hands quickly untied the mooring line. Planting a foot against the dock, she pushed the boat away from the pier. The girl looked like she had more experience with small craft than I did.

I grinned as I stepped behind the wheel. "Ladies, please stow your hats." I shrank back from the frosty glares. "I can't really open up the throttle otherwise"

"Mister, we did say that we weren't in a hurry," Carrot Girl said, sitting on the boat's bow.

"Suit yourself." I shrugged, nudging the throttle just enough so that the boat leisurely pulled away from the dock and into the open ocean.

* * *

It took a while for the shore of Tsukishima to recede across the horizon, especially at the snail's pace the girls insisted I take. But it was long enough for the three of us to work our way through the usual pleasantries. Willowy's real name was Reisen, and that carrot girl cousin of hers went by Tewi. Both of them claimed to be on summer break from college, but I doubted either of them had graced a campus in over a year. Tsukishima is just too remote for the average boat bunny to just stumble upon by accident.

"So, what are you girls doing out here?" I asked, keeping a firm hand on the wheel and the throttle.

"An art student friend of ours recommended the atoll," Reisen said. She held her hat firmly against her head.

"She wouldn't shut up about it," Tewi growled. She sipped on a box drink. "As if we weren't real women if we hadn't seen the ocean."

"There's more to the world than just the sea," I said. For a moment, I was caught up in the mountains of Afghanistan, kicking in doors. "But not many of them are as pleasant."

"Are we far enough away?" Reisen said, wincing as she craned her neck towards the vanishing shore.

Warning bells went off in my head. It never happened to me, but enough guys in my unit had been out on a pleasant night that turned into a wild ride and a missing wallet right after the girl they were with went all secretive. If either of them tried anything, I'd pitch them over the side and come back in an hour and fish them out. A good long swim far from shore tended to adjust attitudes

I glanced back, just to make sure no one was about to do something stupid. Tewi slid off of her perch on the bow and ran to the stern. Cupping her hands around her eyes, she looked back to where we had come. Behind her, the barest edge of Tsukishima peeked out from the horizon. "Should be good enough. Hey, mister, look at Reisen." She pointed towards her friend.

Despite myself, I turned around. For the first time since stepping aboard my craft, the ash-haired beauty met my eyes. She had pretty pink eyes like an albino, but no albino that I knew of had eyes that glowed.

Reisen stood up and took off her straw hat. I shit you not, two snowy white rabbit ears sprung free. I glanced back on a hunch. Tewi's hat was gone as well. Unlike her cousin, Tewi's bunny ears huddled tight against her raven dark hair like, well, a mini-lop's.

I'll be damned. I had two honest to God  _bunny_  girls on my boat. Hugh Heffner would be jealous, if he wasn't into the factory-made identical blondes he so loved. And from the way Reisen eyed me with that glowing stare of hers, I would be damned, literally, if I said the wrong thing.

"Do we have a problem?" Reisen said. Her tone commanded a level of respect that I hadn't heard since the Army. As she spoke, my thoughts turned fluid, jumbling together like some thick stew.

"Not at all. You girls seem nice enough," I said, shaking my head. The confusion cleared from my head as I spoke.

Reisen's eyes faded to normal. She sighed as she wrung out one long white ear. "I hate wearing that hat, it wrinkles my ears."

I wanted to touch her ears. They seemed like they'd be softer than Angora. However, the First Rule of Boat Bunnies still held sway. "Are those real-"

"Call us cosplay enthusiasts," Tewi purred. She flashed a lot of teeth at me in what I hoped was a smile.

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" I said, pointing to Reisen. The tall bunny girl's long ears twitched.

"Believe, no. Leave it as, yes," Tewi said. "You are going to leave it, yes?"

Need to know. Got it. I'm no stranger to secrets. "Suit yourself," I said, with a shrug.

* * *

Fortunately for the bunnies, St. Vincent was one of many small islands around the atoll that was unoccupied. I cut the engine and anchored off the shore. Or what was left of it. Coconut palms and zebra wood shrubs covered the island with dark green leaves, leaving little room for surf and sand.

"Hey, Long Ears," Tewi shouted. The short girl in a racing suit teetered on the edge of the boat. "Aren't you going to come in?"

Reisen lifted her head just long enough to shake her head. She had traded her sundress for a modest pink bikini and a fluffy beach towel. Both bunny and towel lay sprawled out on the bow, soaking up the sunlight.

And, yes, before you ask, cottontails. Both of them. And more lifelike than any "cosplay enthusiast" could buy.

"Spoilsport," Tewi said, plunging in the water. I saw a flash of blue and green among the crystal blue water and she surfaced, spitting water.

"It takes forever to get that algae smell out of my ears," Reisen said, wrinkling her nose. "Have fun among the sharks."

"I can't help it if they like me," Tewi said, treading water. She looked up at me. "Don't tell me that I'm swimming alone."

What can you say to an invitation like that? Stopping just long enough to grab a mask and snorkel, I dove over the side.

* * *

The smooth sea held from St. Vincent to Rumrunners. That let me open wide the throttles, and the small boat, a clunker by most standards, sliced across the water like the flying fish that leaped from our wake. Occasionally, a small wave launched the bow into the air. Cheery giggles and salt spray greeted its inevitable return to the sea.

But even with taking the long way across the lagoon, the U-shaped island of Matamoros and its unwelcome marina grew ever closer. Tewi tapped my hand and shook her head. I backed off the throttle, almost bringing the boat to a stop.

Immediately, the straw hats and sundress came out. Reisen slicked her long ears back until they hung behind her like long white ribbons from a bow. Tewi just set her hat at a rakish angle and smiled. "You know what they say about all good things," she said, smoothing her skirts underneath her before she sat.

"You sure that you don't want another trip around the island?" I asked. Even with the sprawling Rumrunners bar and resort taking up a third of the island, Matamoros still had some of the best beaches in the atoll. Some days I wished that my company had built its facilities here, but I was well aware of the dangers in keeping large numbers of engineers anywhere near polite society.

"If we weren't meeting friends," Reisen said wistfully, eyeing the golden brown sandy shores.

"College friends?"

"More like the dorm mom," Tewi said, laughing. Reisen flashed her cousin a glare so cutting that it could have sliced diamond. "Oh, lighten up, Long Ears. At least I didn't call her, 'Grandma.'"

"Don't let her hear you say that." Reisen's eyes grew widen as she huddled against the railing and shuddered.

"One of our friends went prematurely white. Reisen found out the hard way just how sensitive she can be about that," Tewi said, pulling out another box drink from the cooler at her feet.

"She put the Evil Eye on you?" I said, working the wheel so that that boat steered to the right side of the traffic buoys.

"Worse. She said that if I continued to tease her, my hair would go white as well," Reisen muttered.

I bit back a chuckle. Reisen's fur was pure white, even if her hair wasn't. Looks like my two guests are as much young women as they were rabbits. Then again, I did remember a twenty-something version of myself agonizing over each stray hair in the sink.

The waves lapped against the bow as the craft crept closer to the marina. Peace, however, were nowhere to be found. Tewi climbed her way back and forth across the boat, looking out towards the horizon. Reisen had to pull her back over the railing once, before her cousin disappeared into the water.

We circled around to fish Tewi's hat out of the drink. At least she had the good grace to look abashed while Reisen scolded her. Both of their spirits quickly returned, and the last mile to the dock was full of laughter. Some of it was even my own.

It was with regret that I pulled back sharply on the throttle. The engines surged in reverse and then cut out, leaving the boat motionless just inches from the Rumrunners pier. The waves finished the job, nudging the boat against the pier so that my two assistants could tie the craft securely to the dock.

I checked their work before stepping onto the floating concrete rig. "I'll be out this way for a while. If you see me, don't feel shy about asking for a ride," I said, holding out my hand. A mere pleasantry; most boat bunnies kept on the move.

"Thank you," Reisen said graciously, holding my hand as she stepped out of the boat. She knelt down and took the cooler from Tewi. "I'd like that."

Once more, I offered my hand. Tewi pulled herself out of the boat and onto her toes. For the briefest of instants, her lips brushed my cheek. "For luck," she said catching my eyes.

I watched them walk down the pier towards Matamoros island, trading the occasional wave. After the bunny girls disappeared from sight, I settled my dock and fuel fee and walked towards Rumrunners in search of a cheeseburger in paradise.

Some proprieties have to be observed. Even if it meant listening to that damn song again.

* * *

It's been five weeks, and I find myself once again sipping a Jack and Coke out here at Rumrunners. Maybe I'll see them again, but they're most likely halfway to Kwajalein by now. Boat bunnies aren't known for staying in one place, and I guess that'd be doubly so for those two. All I have left from that day is a kiss and a promise of good luck, along with a bundle of fading pleasant memories. It wouldn't be the first time I'd gone sentimental over a kiss.

Then again, something inside is still telling me that my luck's about to change...

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Thanks to Captain Vulcan for giving this a look prior to posting.

 


	7. The Country Doctor

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

I've sent my wife away; as long as the mountain goddesses smile upon her, she should be safe. I've kept this secret even from her. Now that my life is forfeit, I find that I must write it down.

She is coming for me; I know it in my bones. Those red-eyed stares stole what little joy that I could find from my wayward daughter's wedding to the half-breed shopkeeper. She passed by me in the reception line, taking deliberate care to catch my eye. Her red eyes flashed, and I saw the moment of my death down to the silk chord and the shattered glass bottle my daughter will find by my body.

We all thought she was perfect, even those of us who hated her kind. I know I did, now I can't remember why.

A year ago, sickness swept through the village. They called it the bird flu, but even tengu medicine could not help its victims. My wife caught it first, and my daughter, may the devils take her, only deigned to leave her forest when her own mother could no longer sit up in bed. Then I caught the fever as well. Not willing to risk my daughter's concoctions, I slipped out the door to ask the country doctor what was wrong with me.

This was before the rabbit doctor lost her sick friend. A rare affliction, she called it. She said that she was doing all she could do. We believed it; not even her boss, the moon doctor, could bring the little bunny back from Death's door. Some call death the ultimate healing, but the white rabbit's release was still weeks away when I walked up to the country doctor's office.

I pushed open the door into an empty waiting room and settled on a couch. No assistant sat at the desk; that bunny was withering away at Eternity Manor. I rang the bell, but no one came out from behind the curtain to greet me.

Time crept by, stoking the fire in my veins. Wobbling to my feet, I staggered to the water jug and slaked my thirst, but not my pain. In a haze, I slipped past the curtain that separated the clinic from the waiting room. She kept her remedies in a closet near the entrance. I'd seen her go in it before. Like the rest of the village, my wife and I relied on her to tend our wounds, aches, and illnesses. At this point, I'd have settled for sake, but more potent medicines were closer.

The remedies were separated in labeled bins. Feversbane was easy to find, right next to an unmarked bottle. Still hoping for sake, I uncorked it. A familiar acrid bitterness met my nose. I immediately set the glass aside. My wife used something similar to control the rats that plagued our shop.

I turned around and saw two shadows entwined in the room in front of me. A ghostly mist surrounded them while they made eyes and their hands roamed free. A gasp later and red eyes followed me as I hurried out of the office, leaving the bunny doctor and her blushing mistress to their shame.

Now you know the trouble I've seen.

I've passed her many times in the village since then, and I can never bring myself to meet her eyes. Maybe if I had, I might have had more warning.

The land loves rumor, and many surrounded the rabbit doctor as her friend died. Some said that there was another woman. How could they not, when the ghostly girl clung to her side? I never breathed a word of that day, but she wouldn't believe me that the tales didn't start with me.

So now I sit alone in my parlor, choking down my bitter drink as I write these words. I'm waiting for the red eyes that will be the last thing I will ever see.

The door slams against the wall. Red eyes peer from the stalking shadows, petrifying me as chills run through my body. The bottle slips out of frozen fingers and shatters against the floor.

I can only hope that my daughter will avenge me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Bruce Hornsby's song, "The Country Doctor". Thanks to WillieGR and Captain Vulcan for prereading.


	8. Glory, Departed

"Luna! Star!" Sunny Milke hollered, dragging her broom as she passed beneath the torii gate. The Hakurei shrine had three such gates, separating the Holy, the Most Holy, and the Holy of Holies from the ordinary world that surrounded it. But the ancient priests who consecrated the gates never planned for the fairies that routinely tracked mud across the holy thresholds. "Chores are done!"

The three fairies had recently made their home within the Hakurei shrine grounds after foolishly challenging the shrinemaiden, Reimu Hakurei, to a duel. Unsurprisingly, Reimu hadn't broken a sweat. Instead of sealing Sunny and her friends away, the shrinemaiden had instead invited the fairies into the shrine. Since then, the trio had enlivened the quiet shrine with their antics, even as they helped Reimu with the chores. Now, if only Sunny could keep Star from talking about claiming the shrine as her own.

Sunny slumped against the torii gate and sighed. "Don't tell me that they've left already." The chores never seemed to end around the remote shrine, only the daylight. It came as no surprise that Reimu had caught Luna and Sunny slacking off many times, but Star always eluded her. The starlight fairy's gift always let her know when the shrinemaiden was near. "Reimu's making her soba noodles and pickled salad." The promise of good food should bring her lazy friends out of hiding.

The ground shook beneath her feet. Sunny grabbed for the torii gate's post, but staggered out of reach. She took to the air, dropping her broom on the stone path. Sunny looked through the gate and then to the sky. Earthquakes weren't uncommon in Gensokyo, but it paid to look out from falling keystones.

The shaking stopped, only to be followed by the electric sound of shredding cloth. Sunny patted down her own dress before watching the shrine. A great pillar of white smoke billowed out of the small building, rising high to the sky before the wind blew it away.

A chill ran down Sunny's spine as the last of the cloud faded into mist and nothingness. An incident, no doubt, and on her doorstep, too. She caught her breath and a wan smile crossed her lips. The fairy might not know much about the shrine where she lived, but she knew one thing deep within her bones.

Whatever may come, Reimu would handle it.

* * *

"It's about time you showed up," Marisa Kirisame said, leaning against the Hakurei shrine's outermost torii gate. She had traded her want for a broom, but the pointy hat remained. To Marisa, there was not point in being a witch unless everyone else could recognize her as one.

Alice Margatroid most certainly wasn't a witch, even though she spent a lot of time around Marisa. First of all, she was addicted to colors other than black. Two dolls, both blonde like their mistress, trailed behind the puppeteer as she climbed the steps toward the shrine. "What do you want? I was having a heart to heart with Hourai." The doll in the red dress glowered at her name. "She's always misbehaving, not like her sister, Shanghai." Hourai's twin in a blue dress actually beamed.

Marisa whistled as she shook her head. "I've got to get you out more often. They're dolls, not people." All three Margatroid girls glared at her. The witch held up her hand. "But I can only worry about one crisis at a time."

"My social life is not a crisis," Alice snapped, hugging her mysterious black book against her chest. Color bled into her cheeks.

"Whatever," Marisa drawled. No girl with Alice's slender height and porcelain features should hide herself in a forest. Sanae had once called the puppeteer a supermodel. Marisa didn't know what the shrinemaiden meant, but it sounded like fun. The witch's smile faded. "We need to see Reimu."

"How bad is it?" Alice said, following the witch through the torii gate. Normally, there was a slight pressure whenever she crossed the shrine's threshold. She might not be a witch, but many gods grew uncomfortable at Alice's presence.

Marisa fished a large ingot of chocolate out of her apron and held it over her head. That one bar could supply three thirsty women enough hot chocolate for a weekend and still have enough left over for the inevitable fairies and visitors passing by the shrine.

"Oh dear," Alice murmured as she pursed her lips. Even Shanghai and Hourai perked up at the sight of the bar. What sorrow would need that much joy to wipe it away?

* * *

A sheaf of wheat, waving through the air. Sake, poured onto the ground. Incense, smoldering as its fragrance rose to heaven. Rice cakes, given over to the gods through fire. Salt, consecrating again once holy ground. A dozen meals, each as varied as the hundred offerings filling the shrine's grounds. Rice, grain, pickled and fresh vegetables, but never meat nor fat nor blood. Only the Suwa gods demanded that sacrifice.

Amidst the bountiful offerings, the heavens remained silent.

Reimu pulled a wooden sign off of the shrine's outside wall. It didn't fell right to claim to be a branch of the Moriya shrine. With the heavens silent, it didn't feel right to claim to be a shrine at all.

Her head bowed, the shrinemaiden shuffled inside. Sniffing and rubbing her eyes, she stepped in front of a polished brass mirror set upon a stained reliquary cabinet. The incense hung thicker than usual in the air, Reimu mused, staring at her red eyed reflection. If she repeated it enough, maybe she'd actually believe it.

Four spherical bells sat in front of the mirror. Reimu hadn't worn them since her first days as an initiate, where she learned how to draw the gods' attention without such aids. Now, there was nothing else left to try. She picked up one of the bells, rolling it in her palm before tying it firmly in her hair.

"Reimu!" Marisa called out, coughing as she entered the shrine. Alice entered behind her, a handkerchief held demurely against her nose. Two dolls floated in, mirroring the puppeteer. "Wow, hitting the incense a little strong, aren't you?"

"You're not supposed to be in here," Reimu said, scowling at the red-dressed doll fanning incense away from her face. Even when silent, heaven still had a sense of humor. The shrinemaiden tied off a second bell. Only those consecrated to service were supposed to enter the Holy of Holies, where the reliquary stayed. Frankly, Reimu just wanted to be alone.

"I built this room," Alice said, hiding her handkerchief. She smiled, nodding towards her dolls. "Well, they did." She had helped Sakuya and Suika rebuild the shrine in the aftermath of the Celestial's tantrum.

"And you know I'm not one to go where I'm not invited." Marisa actually held a straight face for five seconds before grinning.

"I'm all out of tea," Reimu said, eyeing the two magicians' reflection in the mirror. "Can the two of you go get me some?"

"Good thing I brought something stronger," Marisa said, setting her bar of chocolate on a nearby shelf. "Sunny said that you might be needing some after running yourself ragged all day."

"Meddling fairy," Reimu murmured, tying off the third bell. She felt a slight smile spreading across her lips. "You never know, I might just enlist the help of two nearby volunteers." The prospect of actual work should send them packing.

"I thought you had fairies for that," Alice said.

"Indeed." Reimu tied the last bell into her hair. She closed her eyes and sighed. Only sheer force of will kept the shrinemaiden from trembling as she stood, but it couldn't keep the color from draining out of her face. Loosening the ribbon around her neck, Reimu pulled her blouse over her head and onto the floor. Storming out of the shrine, she tore at the bindings around her breasts.

Marisa and Alice stared open-mouthed, scarlet flooding their cheeks. But as soon as Reimu's foot stepped through the doorway, they leapt forward, grabbing the shrinemaiden's arms and pulling her back inside.

"What are you doing?" Alice hissed, blocking the doorway with her body.

Reimu looked at the puppeteer with wide glassy eyes. Tears streamed down her face as she shrugged out of Marisa's grip. The shrinemaiden clung to the front of Alice's dress, crushing the fabric in her hands. "You're prettier. Dance with me," she rasped. Reimu's slender hands pulled on the laces of Alice's bodice.

The puppeteer shrieked, covering her chest with her arms. Marisa shoved her way between her friends and pushed Reimu away. Wild-eyed, the shrinemaiden dove towards Alice, stopping only when Marisa cuffed her hard enough to lift the dark haired girl off of her feet.

* * *

"What the Hell's gotten into you?" Marisa said, towering over Reimu. The short witch had dragged the shrine's donation box over, just so she could stand on it to loom over the shrinemaiden.

"Ame-no-Uzume," Reimu said, rubbing an imprint of a hand on her cheek. The shrine maiden sat where Marisa had knocked her over.

"That better have been an 'I'm sorry,'" Alice hissed. She held her arms out away from her body while Shanghai and Hourai relaced her dress.

"Ame-no-Uzume." The shrinemaiden enunciated each syllable of the name slowly and clearly.

"Neither one of us is from your faith," Marisa said. She hurled a wad of red cloth at Reimu. "Put that back on."

"Back when the sun goddess Amaterasu had sealed herself in a cave, the gods tried everything to get her to come back out. Only Ame-no-Uzume's dance coaxed Amatersu out of her solitude." Reimu slipped into her blouse. She turned her head away from her guests. "It...wasn't a ballroom dance." She winced, and her face matched her skirt. "It was a burlesque."

Marisa fell off of the donation box laughing. "I never thought of a goddess as a stripper before," she wheezed, picking herself up off of the ground.

""I'm not in the mood to hear this, especially from one who likes to walk around 'skyclad,'" Reimu snapped.

"The boys only wish that was the case."

"This doesn't explain why you streaked out of here. Or why you wanted to drag me with you," Alice said.

"My god is missing," Reimu said. Then, like a flooding river bursting free from its banks, "I've tried everything to call him back, nothing's worked, I had to try it." Her shoulders slumped as she hugged her knees to her chest. "I had to."

"Quick, hot chocolate!" Marisa said as she knelt by Reimu.

A flick of Alice's figures sent her dolls scurrying for a kettle. Well, Shanghai at least. Hourai stood motionless no matter how many commands her puppeteer gave her. Alice eyed her doll quizzically. "What-?"

Marisa rolled her eyes and stormed over to her chocolate bar. "For crying out loud, worry about your doll later," she hissed, shoving the treat into the dollmaker's hands. Alice fumbled with the bar before it fell into the kettle that Shanghai dragged over. The doll poured milk into the kettle and backed away as Marisa's heating spell flared into life. The witch turned back towards Reimu. "What do you mean, missing?"

"The Yin Yang Orb is missing," Reimu said. She leaned over and opened the reliquary. Normally the icon that served as the embodiment of the Hakurei shrine god on earth sat inside. Now, the cupboard was empty. "See."

"Couldn't you have just misplaced it?" Alice said, stirring the melting chocolate inside the kettle. Shanghai carried a stack of mugs over to her mistress.

"I've always been able to call it back," Reimu said, shivering. She closed her eyes and held out her palm. Alice and Marisa waited while the shrinemaiden uttered a quick prayer. Reimu's hand remained empty. "Now, I can't. And the god won't come when I try to channel him."

"Did you ever learn your god's name?" Marisa asked, wrapping a comforter around Reimu's shoulder.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Reimu snapped. She huddled within the thick blanket. "Not like it matters any more. How can I call myself a shrinemaiden when my shrine no longer has an icon of an embodied god?"

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," a refined, feminine voice said. The three girls jumped. Only natural grace kept Alice from tipping over her kettle.

"Who's out there?" Marisa said, palming her elemental reactor towards the shrine's exit.

"Down here."

Alice's eyes searched the shrine's interior until a waving doll caught her attention. Hourai bounced in the middle of the room. The puppeteer's eyes snapped open. She wasn't sending commands to her doll. And when did Hourai's hair turn green?

"Hina? What are you doing?" Reimu said, brandishing sealing charms. Even without her god's icon, the Yin Tang Orb, the shrinemaiden was ready for a fight.

Alice rubbed her eyes. Sure enough, Hourai's hair had grown long enough for her to tie it together underneath her chin with a red ribbon in the same style that the luck goddess, Hina Kagiyama, wore hers.

"Someone was so kind enough to leave a vessel I could use right outside of a vacated shrine," Hina-in-Hourai said as she twirled through the air. Alice sputtered as she flicked her fingers, but the strings connecting her to her doll fell limp.

"This is still the Hakurei god's shrine," Reimu said, rocking to her feet. "Not yours."

The embodied doll goddess settled inside the reliquary, planting her fists against her hips. "Your god left. Shouldn't you be worried about who's going to move in?"

The shrine's courtyard filled with angry shrieks. The three girls rushed outside, fumbling for spell cards as they ran.

Star Sapphire, like the explorers of old, had planted a homemade flag into the grass. Standing on her tiptoes as she shouted, the fairy tried to tower over a blonde girl wearing a straw hat. Red-faced, Suwako Moriya shoved a sign at the fairy, no doubt the same shrine that proclaimed the Hakurei shrine as a branch of the Moriya Mountain Shrine. Neither noticed the audience or the small doll setting her own claim inside the shrine's reliquary.

Reimu's eyes turned glassy as she tottered on her feet, finally falling into Marisa's arms.

* * *

Water for the hands, salt for the floor, ash for the lips. A prayer offered with each step of the cleansing. Finally ritually pure, Rinnosuke clapped his hands and drew open the curtain to his hearth's shrine.

Merchants took great stock in ritual. Not only did haggling over prices have a distinct form, any job that relied on the blessings of numerous gods for diverse goods demanded the fastidiousness needed to keep them satisfied. Fail to please the war god and risk bandits. Clipped, worthless coins followed in the wake of the prosperity god's displeasure. Upset the harvest goddess...

He lived in special fear of that. Not only did she help bring forth the bounties of the earth that passed through Rinnosuke's hands as he bought and sold, Minoriko Aki smiled on him personally. Every day, as she came through his shop, along with a host of other women. Each plied their charms in the hope of being the one girl womanly enough to catch his heart. (It wouldn't be quite so bad if the girls actually bought something when they visited.) Scorning any of his suitors would cause a small riot. Scorning Minoriko would likely ruin him.

Each morning, he poured a small gift of appreciation. Rice wine flowed into a small cup in front of each of his household gods' icons. The gods must enjoy the offerings; every evening he found the cups empty. Although the daily gifts to a dozen gods added up to a noticeable part of his budget, the blessings ensured that he was never hungry and the gods never went without their libations.

Today, thirteen icons greeted him. The newcomer, an orb etched with the symbol of the Way and Harmony, even manifested its own small stone bowl. How it had pulled the earthenware from the Hakurei shrine was a mystery.

Rinnosuke filled the bowl with a pour offering. "Greetings. I am unworthy of such an august visit. Shouldn't your shrinemaiden be the one to attend you?"

_She has forgotten me. You alone know my name._

The voice echoed in Rinnosuke's mind with the force of a tempest. The sake before the Yin Yang Orb rippled in its cup. "I don't know the sacrifices-"

_To obey is better than sacrifice._

The Orb took on a cold glow that illuminated the merchant's hearth. Rinnosuke knelt before his hearth's shrine, silent. Then, in a quiet voice, "What would you ask of me?"

 


	9. Howl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please, for the love of sleep, don't wake the Doomkitten!

"'In her house in Mayohiga, dread Yukari lies dreaming,'" Ran Yakumo muttered. She lurked next to her master's four-post bed, shadows hiding both the fox woman and the giant pillow in her hands. Smothering her master now would quiet the jet engine roar howling from the sleeping youkai's mouth by a factor of a thousand. Too bad that the resulting buzz saw whine would still be a hundred thousand times shriller than Yukari's normal pleasant, yet cryptic, speech.

Ran wished she could spend a moment to figure out down to the last digit exactly how much the feather cushion would silence Yukari's snoring. The vixen loved numbers to the point that her master often called her a living computer. With a little coaxing, they could tell her much about the world and how it worked. For instance, she had only ten minutes before Chen woke up to add her own caterwauling to the mix. Sleeping through that cacophonous duet, Ran knew from hard-learned terror, would be impossible.

Unless you were Yukari Yakumo.

The Buddha taught that to desire is to suffer. Limiting desire would end the ceaseless pain of existence. But even the Enlightened One would crave a night of uninterrupted sleep. especially if he had spent the past week stealing little cat naps around the Doomkitten's fits.

The vixen's hands twitched as she crept away from the mountain of ruffles and silk. "Even Reimu would forgive me," she whispered. The cushion dangled from Ran's loose grip until the fox hugged it tight against her body.

Unlike humans and beasts, breathing down would not kill Yukari. Assuming that the blonde youkai would even deign to notice the inconvenience, Ran figured that her master would be 33% likely to just roll over and moan Aya's name. After that, Ran was 100% certain to smother her for real. That left a 67% chance that Yukari would wake up raring for a full-contact pillow fight where she owned all the pillows. Yet no matter how Yukari applied the switch of correction, Chen would sleep away, oblivious. After the ruckus, Ran then could get a few hours sleep, at least until Yukari's feral snore awoke once more to murder all chances of rest. If the vixen acted in the next nine minutes and seventeen seconds...

...sixteen...

...fifteen...

Ran cast her burning bloodshot eyes about for any way to silence that infernal snore. Merely waking Yukari for anything short of Yuyuko's yearly banquet or Reimu and Marisa kicking down the door to Mayohiga would earn the fox a swat or ten.

Some days Ran wished that she had never agreed to become Yukari's familiar, but she'd never step away from the wonderful world of numbers her master had introduced her to.

Her eyes lit on the small portal by the bed. Yukari kept one nearby the bed as a chamber pot. Ran normally wished that her boss would get out of bed and walk to the bathroom like anyone else. Anything for a respite from the rasping snarl belting from Yukari's bedroom. However, her master loved convenience dearly, and Ran suffered on.

"In for a penny," Ran said. Her tails swished behind her and she flashed a toothy predatory smile. She ran towards the bathroom, opening herself up towards her master's power. Warmth flooded through her body, reminding the fox woman of running through fields on a midsummer day.

The vixen burst into the shrine to brass, porcelain, and beauty products. One swift kick spun the dial over the tub, flooding it with cold water. Meanwhile, Ran seized in both hands the portal hovering over the toilet and channeled her master's power into it. It took every bit of the warmth within, but the fox dragged the portal over the tub and pulled it just wide enough for an eternal seventeen year old.

Ran stepped back, watched the water fill the tub, and pursed her lips. Dashing out of the room, she reappeared minutes later, dragging a bag of ice as long and as full as one of her tails. Swinging it around, she smashed the ice against a wall before dumping the bag into the water.

Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds before the Doomkitten's yowl, Ran stood again by her master's bed and gripped the underside of the mattress. Lightning quick calculations told her how hard, how fast, and how high to life. With a minute to spare, and a bright smile on her lips, the  _kitsune_  trickster hauled her side of the bed high into the air. Yukari tumbled over the side, and a pleasing splash filled the air.

"RAN!"

And Chen slept on.

* * *

Yukari huddled against the porcelain tub, shivering inside a heavy terry cloth robe. Her teeth chattered as she flipped through a phone-book sized manual in her hands, stopping only to wipe sodden blonde strands out of her eyes. "Why is my familiar misbehaving?" Yukari read.

_Your Kitsune 9.0 familiar is acting out in an attempt to bring your attention to her needs. The manufacturer recommends that you sit down with your Kitsune 9.0 and work your way through the following questions until you are able to diagnose and correct the underlying need causing her misbehavior._

Yukari scowled, her lips twisting into a moue of disgust as she read on. Flinging the thick book against the wall, she reached for a small pamphlet atop a stack of scattered magazines and books by the toilet. Titled "Familiars for Dummies," this single sheet folded three times had been written by Yuyuko Saigyouji and distilled the ghostly courtesan's wisdom into a series of pithy sayings. Where the Kitsune 9.0 manual had reams of paper devoted to troubleshooting, Yuyuko's philosophy could be reduced to two sentences.

"Equipment that can't work is replaced. Equipment that won't work is abused until it can't or it does," Yukari read aloud through blue lips. The waterlogged youkai grinned and reached through a portal, grabbing a familiar wooden switch.


	10. Queen of Clubs

I didn't care what bullshit rambled from my lips. It didn't matter anyway. Strip all the fluff away from lurid tales and stories of old, and the core of my spiel was simple. Look over here at what I want you to see so you can't see what I'm really up to. It doesn't take much to palm a red ball from under a cup when no one watches.

Listen, only a sucker plays the shell game. You might have seen it around your city. Three shells or cups or whatever and one ball. Place the ball under one, and around and around they go. Where it stops, any sharp-eyed mark thinks they know. Pick the cup, and double your money. But you never will. I make sure of that. And when you walk away, broke, another will take your place. The lure of easy money always draws a crowd.

Call me Bandit. Many already have. I drift from place to place so you'll never have a chance to call me a second time. Give me nothing but a three cups and a ball, and I'll be back on my feet in no time. Give me a pack of cards, and I'm golden. Since I've made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the Village that Time Forget, this is a good thing for me.

The Way Back Machine had dropped me into a valley that wouldn't be out of place in one of those old samurai movies. There's a strange mix of peasants from before the Meiji, Western dress, and grown adults wearing animal ears. Not that it mattered. Whether human, rabbit, cat, or wolf, their yen still spent the same.

I raked in another pile of coins. The fools in front of me never seemed to learn that the ball that should have been where their money was had vanished into my hand. This next round, however, I'd leave it to chance. The occasional win would keep the crowd's greed stoked. Afterwards, I might even persuade a few to a friendlier little game of cards. High stakes or even odd ones, of course.

A couple days ago, that wheedling had been bountiful. I felt my smile brighten as I spun the cups. A pretty young librarian succumbed to charm instead of common sense. She'd walked into my rented room with a purse of yen. She ran out with nothing but an incandescent body blush, no match for a deck stacked colder than a glacier's heart.

I told you to call me Bandit.

The crowd cheered and pressed against the winners, a tall, lanky merchant with ash hair and a pretty blond in a strange take on the little black dress. Too many frills for my taste. I'd seen the look in their eyes before. Bandit had them hooked. Give me enough time, and I'd have both the merchant's shop and the girl on his arm.

Once again, the familiar spiel rolled out of my mouth. The shells swirled on the little board pressed against the edge of the dirt road. He followed a cup with his eyes, ignorant that my quick fingers had done their job once again. The ball would appear inside another cup, after he lost his money, of course.

The merchant set a stack of coins down in front of the center cup. Part of me expected the number in the frilly dress to protest, but her eyes were even hungrier than her boyfriend. Sorry, sister, the First Bank of Bandit always wins. I'll be the only one doubling, tripling, quadrupling his money today.

I lifted the center cup, watching for the exquisite moment when hope shattered. But the couple's smiles grew wider and the crowd cheered again. A single red ball sat beneath it, a twin to the one I'd slipped into my pocket moments before. Faking a smile that could mask the grinding of my teeth, I slid a large chunk of the day's gains next to the merchant's bet. A quick brush against my pants reassured me that I had indeed removed the ball from play.

At best, I had an amateur cheat on my hands.

The crowd groaned as I announced the end to my peculiar brand of streetside theater. I didn't care. Time to leave.

Take a tip from Bandit. If you find someone cheating, leave. Don't try to figure out the trick and, by the Crooked Warden, don't be a dumbass and confront the cheater. If you're lucky, and steel isn't tickling your ribs or you haven't had the sudden need to learn how to catch a bullet in your teeth, you're going to meet the hired help. Skull kickers, face smashers, brawlers, and brutes. I say this as someone who has hired his own collection of highly regarded and expensive unsavories on a regular basis. Save Bandit the need for these, and you might just save yourself an expensive set of medical bills.

As I tied the cups and coins inside a thick bundle, I couldn't help but watch as the merchant's girl stood on her toes and whispered in the ear of her friend, a honey of a honey-blonde tall enough to grace the streets of Tokyo, New York, or Paris. This honey laughed, and then cast her eyes towards me.

I'd seen her kind before. There's a type of young woman of a certain age that needs to be bound to their mothers' apron strings before she dives headlong into trouble just to prove she's no longer a girl. Had Mama Honey just seen that smolder in her daughter's eyes, she wouldn't have let her out of the house ever again. There's no way the tall blonde in the blue dress learned that from her mother. I'd make sure keep an eye out for her. And one more for that cheat.

* * *

_"Isn't there some way we can keep playing?"_

_"I could buy something off of you..."_

_"But I don't have anything to sell."_

_"Perhaps that caplet?"_

_"You'll give it back after the game?"_

* * *

Her name was Elysse or Alice; I couldn't tell which. Her lips did delightful things to vowels that no proper Japanese woman could match. It didn't matter anyway. Girls like her, so willing to plunge headlong into trouble, never used their real name.

I didn't set out to find this honey-blonde with the smoldering stare. She found me, Your Honor, I swear. I did keep a deck of cards, a candle-lit room, and soft sheets ready just in case opportunity came knocking with blonde hair, a model's body, and a sea of white frills and red ribbon.

I knew her type after all. And I knew how she'd act when a two pair revealed that a caplet, no matter how cute, doesn't cover much of a young woman or her debts. She turned her face, but her eyes met mine as she tugged on the laces of her dress. I slid a stack of chips over, and the fabric around her neck began to part.

I turned my back as she shimmied out of her dress. There's a dance to this. The more dignity now, the less likely she'd be to run out of here. So I pretend that I'm not that interested in her delicate state of undress, and she pretends that she doesn't know what the sight of her in a thin white shirt and petticoat does to a man. Meanwhile, we both ignore that she's taking off her clothes in front of a stranger. We're playing a game after all, and just doing what the cards tell us to do. Elysse doesn't realize, though, that the cards speak with my voice.

You really think I'd rely on blind luck with an adventurous young woman's body on the line? Are you kidding me? OF COUSRE I CHEAT! So does every red-blooded man that plays this silly game. Marked cards? Please, I'm a professional. Amateurs ink and rough up cards, and never as cleverly as they think. Professionals shuffle their way to success. I'd rather spend thirty seconds shuffling than a week doctoring cards.

Elysse folded her dress and set it on the table. Then, with a little twirl that spun the hem of her petticoat just enough to reveal a flash of toned thigh, she sat down in her chair. She made no effort to cover herself as she slid the cards toward me; if I hadn't seen her in her street clothes, I would have thought she was wearing a regular white dress. Not that she'd wear that for long. I'd purposely set the blinds high enough that it was essentially one garment each round.

I picked up the cards and smiled. There's a special hand I deal when it's time to discard a young woman's modesty, complete with a suite of Bandit's special lies. Two pair can be a great hand, especially when the high pair holds the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Diamonds. I'll leave it to your imagination what sweet nothings you can whisper with those cards in mind. Too bad my hand's three of a kind.

See, there's more to Bandit's heart than larceny. There's a smidgeon left over for poetry. A little poetry sweetens the scam, after all. That three of a kind? All knaves. That's jacks, for those of you using Vegas-style decks. Not one ingénue has picked up on that little flourish; she's too drunk on the constant refrain of crazy, sexy, and beautiful.

I slid the deck towards Elysse. The pretty little thing, now only in white, cut the deck in a straight cut. None of this dozen little piles nonsense. It doesn't work, trust me. The longer cards slip and slide past each other in my hands, the better I can stack the deck in my favor. This time, I shuffled the cards just long enough to hide her losing hand at the top and my winning hand at the bottom. Meanwhile, the small talk chattered on.

The betting was over in a heartbeat. I pushed the beat a little harder than seen in a friendly game, just enough for a second piece of clothing. It was time for the lace round, after all, and I wanted to put to bed this silly nonsense that there weren't legs under that shift.

She smiled as she set down her hand in a tidy stack. One by one, she flipped the cards over. A pair of fives, then the queens. I stopped her right there with some soothing saying about the cards revealing her fate. "Artistic modeling," if that three of hearts I slipped into her hand is to be believed. The last card turned over.

The Queen of Clubs.

How the hell did she get a full house? No card shark worth their salt would ever lose track of cards like that.

I let the next hand go, too shocked to really pay attention to my cards. I should have stopped right there, once Elysse had earned enough cash to buy back her lost clothing. But hand after hand, it just got worse. A pair of sixes beaten by a pair of eights; three fours by three sixes. I even got beat by a queen high hand. Clubs, again. No matter if I dealt or she did, I still lost by narrow margins. With the blinds so high, I was soon down to only my skivvies.

A black-hearted trio of queens robbed me of even that.

Elysse scooped the cards up and tapped them into a deck. Cards rippled past each other as she gave them a quick but thorough shuffle. She flipped over the top card. The Queen of Clubs vanished back into the middle of the deck. Another quick shuffle and the first card again was the queen. Then she shuffled frantically, turning over cards at random, yet only the Queen of Clubs stared back at me. Whether second dealt, bottom dealt, or even pulled from the middle of the deck, the same card appeared over and over as Elysse gave a master's class in the art of the card shark, complete with tricks that I had never seen. She slapped the deck against the table and cut the cards into five piles. Dainty hands revealed the top of each. The Ace of Spades. The Ace of Diamonds. The Ace of Hearts. The Ace of Clubs. And you guessed it, the Queen of Clubs.

Proof positive that I'm the sucker at this table. Time to pay. I stood up and looped my thumbs through my waistband. Elysse stood up and help up her hand while another slid my pile of clothes off the table.

"I'll leave you with more than you left Patchouli." My brow furled until I remembered the librarian from earlier. I couldn't help the leer; in another place and another time, artists would have begged her to model for statues that would have made the de Milo gnash her teeth in envy. I got to see that show for free, courtesy of fifty-two assistants.

The blonde girl slammed her hand against the table. "Focus. You have only a couple hours to reach the border before nightfall. Leave now and you might make it."

"You're throwing me out like this?"

Her eyes narrowed. "My friend had even less when she ran out of this room." Shadows rippled behind her.

Fair enough. "So what happened if I don't make it to the border?"

"The cats around here remember a time when they stalked people for food and sport. Some of them long for those days of old." I gulped as I reached for the cards in front of me. The stacks flared in eye-searing gold flashes and vanished. "I said 'leave,'" she said. Steel filled her voice and her hands.

I'd seen longer knives, but hands that deft would make sure those points dug into something vital. "I'll let myself out."

* * *

The wind had already grown cold long before the sun ducked behind the mountains, but the darkness just pushed it into my bones. I'd even stopped shivering. With no sight of whatever border that blonde devil woman had mentioned, I'd need shelter and a fire. I'm no mountain hermit or survivalist, so I just stumbled through the thick forest.

Leaves rustled behind me. A figure padded out of the darkness. A human, thank the Crooked Warden. And while the night covered her face, it couldn't shroud the girl-next-door dress she wore. Not the most elegant of outfits, but, right now, I was in no shape to criticize.

"Hey, mister, let's play a game," the girl purred. She moved out of the shadows, and the moonlight caught the two cat ears poking out of a mass of braids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's notes:
> 
> I find it interest what different languages can do to the same name. Portuguese, for instance, pronounces Alice as Elysse...
> 
> I spent too much time watching Ricky Jay shows the night before coming up with this.


	11. Kiss of the Spider Woman

Her tea had that pleasant copper tang she craved, although only that cocky vampire waif in that impossible mansion would agree with Yamame Kurodani's taste. Her human form didn't eliminate the spideress's thirst for blood, just diluted it. She could appreciate the rice and vegetables common throughout the Village, but the needs of her spider nature eventually won out. A cup of her special blend with every meal sated her thirst. Doubly so, if Yamame could suck it down through a straw, just like the gods intended. It kept the humans' spears away.

Yamame loved a good fight more than that Kirisame witch. But when the humans brought out the spears, they were no longer interested in a good fight, just slaughter. Other beings accepted their place in the food chain, but only humans insisted that it didn't apply to them. And they made convincing arguments with a multitude of sharp points.

She placed her teacup down on a carved rock table. It had come as a shock to her that the surface peoples didn't like her. It was personal, fiercer than the general mistrust aimed at her people. At first, she didn't understand why. Yamame was just as outgoing and spirited as any of the darlings on the surface. Like them, she had a host of suitors waiting for the first sign that she might be willing to marry. But they didn't have her power.

Even among civilized folks, the gift to tell whether that animal the village was about to dine on was just sickly or going to make everyone sick was highly sought after. If Yamame's ability had only been limited to such, the surface people would have likely overlooked her...oddities. Maybe her people could have lived freely on the surface, instead of sneaking out at night to do the odd construction job. But her gift had proven to be broader than food inspection.

The door to the rock cell opened. Yamame winced as reflected sunlight stung her eyes. Her native form was nowhere near as sensitive to minor changes in brightness.

"Miss Kurodani?" A young spiderling still too young to wear the brown dress of an adult poked her blonde head into the cell. "You have a visitor."

"Send them in," Yamame said. She pulled herself out of her comfortable web-backed chair.

The spiderling paled and stammered. "She's on the surface."

"A human?" The spideress raised an eyebrow. The spiderling nodded vigorously. Yamame rolled her eyes and whispered to herself, "Not another one."

"I'm afraid so."

"Didn't you shoo her away?" The spiderling turned white and stammered. Yamame rolled her eyes and slurped down the last of her tea. She hadn't asked the spiderling to duel Reimu. "Just take me to our guest."

* * *

For once, it wasn't a village girl that loitered in front of the sinkhole that served as the mouth to earth spider dens. Yamame hated dealing with the steady trickle of jilted lovers seeking the "Kiss of the Spider Woman" for rivals and cheating cads. Part of her was disgusted that they thought such vile plagues were her kisses. After all, she was acclaimed as one of the best kissers in the underground. But Yamame couldn't send them home with so much as an itch. Her people had been driven underground for less. It was better to make them wait until impatience and the cares of life drove them away.

However, the well-dressed woman with the scarlet-fringed shawl waited patiently among the chaparral brush that lined the sinkhole. Her eyes followed Yamame as the spideress skittered along a network of hidden nooks and spyholes hidden inside the mouth of the sinkhole. Not even the tengu with their keen eyes and sharp noses could find a spider in that earthwork maze. Yamame chewed on her lip and reached out with her power. Her eyes grew wide. The woman outside was free from all infections, even the symbiotic ones that aided in digestion, unlike every other beast, youkai, or human.

Yamame settled in her tight bolt hole hewn out of polished rock and glanced over her shoulder. Spiderlings and guards filled every spyhole behind her. Eyes, compound and human, flickered between her and the scarlet-shawled woman, watching, waiting, weighing.

Bowing her head, Yamame asked Grandmother Spider, creator of the world, for Her blessing and wisdom. A serene peace that matched the visitor's poise filled the spideress, and Yamame stepped out to face her visitor.

The serene woman pressed both hands against her heart and bowed. "Pax tecum." Peace be to you. "Are you the Pale Horse of the Spider clans?"

"I am a spider." Yamame's lips turned in a childish moue.

"I am Iku Nagae, servant of Heaven, emissary of the Dragon Palace, and chatelaine for the Hinanawi clan. Please don't be afraid."

"I'm not afraid, although I might be insulted. What's a Pale Horse?"

"' _And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him._ '"

"I'm not a shinigami." Yamame crossed her arms and palmed a spellcard. "Yep, pretty sure I'm offended."

Iku bowed again, her shawl rippling in the breeze. "I prefer the poetic whenever possible. It lends a gravitas that Pestilence and Plague Bearer lack."

Yamame winced as each title as though she had been slapped. "What do the honored clouds want of me?" Iku froze and stared at Yamame. The spideress sighed. "I mean Heaven. My people believe that the honored dead become clouds."

The heavenly messenger cleared her throat. "I should spend more time among the beasts and the fishes than among humans. Please relax; I'm here for personal reasons."

"You could have fooled me with all those titles."

"It's a habit picked up from the humans." Iku shook her head and wrapped her shawl tight around her shoulders. "I never understood why the Pancreator made such troublesome folk."

"Grandmother Spider is prone to whimsy." A ghost of a smile flashed across Yamame's lips. "Mine, however, has just about run out." She turned her back on Iku. A score of spiders ducked into their holes.

"I can give your people the sky again."

Yamame's breath caught in her throat. Eyes wide, she spun around. "How? Driving us underground was practically the only time humans and youkai agreed on anything."

Back in times ancient to humans but still in the living memory of the earth spider clans, Yamame's people had been indiscriminate on what they preyed on until their name grew synonymous with every highwayman and bandit that waylaid people throughout Japan. The Emishi had joined with the tengu and a confederation of youkai tribes and drove the spiders into hiding. It had been cold comfort when Grandmother Spider had allowed Heian samurai led by the Fujiwara to mete out justice in kind upon her children's oppressors, since the misunderstanding at Rendai field dashed the spiders' hopes of living once more under the open sky. Yamame hoped that when Grandmother Spider next wove on the Web of Life, her people would enjoy the sky once more.

"You'd be surprised what a word in the right shrinemaiden's ear can do." Iku's voice boomed throughout the sinkhole. Her shawl billowed in the breeze, unfurling behind her like scarlet wings.

"I wouldn't trust in Reimu's goodwill," Yamame muttered. She massaged her shoulder. The quick smiting shrinemaiden hadn't needed to attack her the day that Okuu had gone mad with power; Yamame had only asked Reimu to join in the Underground's feast, not be it.

Iku hid her laughter behind a span of scarlet fringe. "I was thinking of Sanae, actually. Her ear is inclined towards the heavens instead of money. But before we can appeal to the Moriya priestess's goodwill, I need yours."

Yamame cast a look over her shoulder. One blonde spiderling was slow in diving into her hole. "You've got to convince me, not them."

The heavenly emissary's poise never wavered. "' _Be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves_.'"

"What do you want, Madame Sea Serpent?"

For once, Iku's placid mask cracked. "I fear that the Eldest Daughter of the Hinanawi has once again proven to be indiscreet."

"I was wondering who leveled the Hakurei Shrine yet again." Yamame tapped a finger against her lips and smiled.

Iku bowed her head and stepped closer. "It is worse than that." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The Eldest Daughter's confidence exceeds her common sense. Why else would she spar with an oni? Now that oni has taken residence in the Eldest Daughter's heavenly manor. Do you have any idea what revelries that demon inflicts on the serene peace of the Dragon Palace?"

"Yes." Yamame's smile widened and she fiddled with one of the metal buttons that lined the front of her jumper. Her eyes grew distant as she remembered dancing to the thunder of the taiko drums, showered in sake and kisses. She shook her head and fixed a wan smile to her lips. Iku was still talking.

"…holly, salt, silver, even soya. We tried it all. But the oni just laughs each away." Iku's shoulders slumped. "And Lord Nai is about to return." Iku paled and, for a moment, only the rippling of her scarf in the wind could be heard.

Yamame cleared her throat. "Shouldn't you be talking to a shrinemaiden?"

Iku shook her head. "The matter requires subtlety to remain a secret from Lord Nai."

Yamame bit back a sigh. No matter who tried to buy her cooperation, they always danced around their requests. "What's the job?"

"The oni has returned to Gensokyo to pack her belongings before she moves in for good. I need a month to strengthen the defenses of the Dragon Palace in secret to repel her."

"I don't fight oni."

"I'm sure a skilled Pale Horse like yourself could keep an oni bedridden for months. Perhaps with influenza. Cowpox?"

Yamame shook her head. She knew this trick. If she considered the challenge, even for a moment, she would be suckered into the job. "My people have treaties with the oni bands under the mountain. Grandmother Spider doesn't look kindly upon oathbreakers. The oni would finish the job the Emishi started."

"Your people will be protected."

"By who? You're asking me to do what you can't."

"For the sake of your people." Iku's voice projected across the field. "Think of the sun and the sky."

"My people will live underneath the honored clouds again." Yamame turned so that her voice carried throughout the sinkhole that led to her home. "But we will do so by Grandmother Spider's blessing and our own efforts, not through fox tricks and tanuki treachery."

Iku opened her mouth to speak, but froze. She cocked her head, as if listening to a faraway voice. The envoy bowed low, debasing herself beyond a mere supplicant. "I will leave you to work out your people's salvation." She stood up. A paper charm similar to the good luck charms of the Tanabata festival dangled from her fingers. "If you change your mind, tie this to the fairy shrine in the forest. Your reward will not change."

Yamame swiped the charm from Iku's hand. "May the blessings of Grandmother Spider be with you."

"May you find peace as well." Iku's shawl billowed behind her. The wind caught it like a sail. One heartbeat later, Yamame stood alone.

"That was stranger than expected." The charm hung from her hand and twirled. Yamame held it up in front of her eyes. A single eel-like character from an unknown script decorated the charm. Whoever inked it had a graceful touch with the calligraphy brush finer than even Reimu's florid hand. She watched the paper spin in the sun until a spiderling's quieted cry fixed her attention beyond the heavenly charm.

Two lines of earth spiders crowded the entrance of their underground home. Burly construction spiders stood with their arms around their wives while spiderlings clung to their parents. Yamame quailed under her people's thin-lipped stares. For the first time in her life, she felt like a fly caught in a web.

* * *

Three weeks later, under the light of the noonday sun, Yamame led a pair of spiderlings by hand through the human village's main street.


	12. At Ten Paces

In the morning's misty calm, before the Hakurei Shrine's _torii_ gate, Alice Margatroid unlatched a flat leather case and presented a quartet of dueling pistols to her friends. Her lace filigreed hand brushed across a polished wooden stock. "Nitori made these over the weekend. They should work with any of your spellcards." She pulled a yellow pamphlet from the case's lid. "Are you still resolved to answer this challenge?"

"I've been looking forward to knocking Wonder Girl on her butt for weeks," Reimu Hakurei said. For once, the shrinemaiden had left the robes of her office at the shrine. Instead, she wore a scarlet rifleman's jacket studded with silver and a pair of black breeches. Alice had insisted that everyone involved dressed the part.

"Please remind your principal to remain respectful at all times." Suwako Moriya bowed to Marisa Kirisame. The Emishi goddess had traded her dress for an archer's traditional _kimono_ , _hakama_ , and headband, all in purple. Marisa tipped her witch's hat and spun about, her black duster coat twirling behind her.

Before she could speak, Reimu held up a hand. "I heard. I just don't see why we have to do everything in this roundabout manner."

"It's all part of the game." Sanae Kochiya fiddled with the shoulders of her green tabard. She had chosen a musketeer's costume, complete with a wide brimmed cavalier's cap, a peacock's feather, a sky-blue cloak, and a snake and frog emblem on her tabard.

Suwako placed a finger on her priestess's lips. "The rules apply to you as well."

"You're the one who said she was bored with spellcard duels," Reimu muttered.

Alice slammed the case shut. "If you won't take this seriously, I'm afraid we shall adjourn." Her white hoop dress and parasol lent the young woman an air of authority beyond her years.

Marisa leaned over towards Reimu. "That means she's going to take her toys and go home."

Suwako flourished a deck of spellcards into a fan. "I hope I didn't get dressed up for nothing."

"Are you resolved to settle your differences according to the rules of this book?" Alice held up the yellow pamphlet.

"Yes," the principals and seconds groaned in unison.

"Very well, we shall settle this affront at ten paces." Alice pursed her lips and opened the leather case. "Did we ever decide what the affront was?"

Reimu rolled her eyes. Taking Marisa's hat in her hand, she whispered into her second's ear.

Marisa flounced and snatched back her hat. "My principal says that her opponent's presence is sufficient cause for the duel."

"Just because you two fight like sisters isn't reason enough," Alice snapped. "Pick something more glamorous, more romantic. Can't you at least fight over the same man?"

"As if last year's flower could compete with me," Sanae said through Suwako.

"Bold words for a girl hiding underneath her grandmother's bedsheets," Marisa relayed. Reimu stood with her arms crossed, smiling as she eyed the brace of dueling pistols.

Sanae strode towards Reimu, but Suwako's arm barred her way. "Mistress Kirisame, I propose that we no longer allow our principals to riot each other's passions prior to this solemn occasion." The goddess's voice grew regal and she dipped into a deep curtsy. Despite her best efforts, a smile spread across Suwako's lips.

"It shall be as you say, Lady Moriya." Marisa returned the curtsy, an awkward gesture for one dressed as a Puritan witch hunter. Unlike her counterpart, she made no effort to hide her amusement.

Alice stared at Marisa, her mouth agape. Gensokyo's most notoriously boisterous hoyden had actually acted like a proper lady for once. She looked to the sky to see if the morning sun had risen in the West. But the slender fingers that drifted towards her case shattered Alice's wonder. Her hand lashed out, slapping away Marisa's hand. "Stop that. You'll get your turn after this." Her hand darted out again. Suwako pulled hers away.

Sighing, the pretty dollmaker pressed a glowing spellcard against the felt-lined compartment in her hand. A dour Hourai doll appeared and propped a steel-tipped lance against her shoulder. She surveyed the assembled group, giving special attention and enmity to Marisa.

"No fair, Alice. You made everyone dress up except for Hourai." Marisa returned Hourai's scowl.

Alice rolled her eyes and opened the pamphlet. "Before we begin, let us review The Rules…"

The puppeteer started down the list of Mother May I's and By Your Leave's that only postponed the shrinemaidens' showdown. By the seventh Rule, the participants' eyes glazed over. At the fifteenth, even Hourai's head had drooped. Finally, Alice closed the pamphlet. "Are there any questions?"

Sanae raised a hand. "How long until you stand at the edge of my field of vision and drop your handkerchief?"

"For once, I agree with her." Reimu massaged her temples.

"Fine!" Alice snapped. She tapped two fingers against the snoring Hourai doll and retrieved her as a spellcard. "From this moment, the two of you are under your seconds' charge. They are required to use any means necessary to compel obedience, or both you and your seconds will face my chastisement." The puppeteer held up a kappa-made camera phone. A single white feather dangled from its chain.

"You can speak plainly, you know." Suwako shielded her eyes with a hand. "Are we going to start, or will I need to send Sanae to fetch my hat"

"Fine. Screw up and tomorrow's Spirit News will name you as a coward." Alice's face turned red as she stamped her feet and shouted. "Stop ruining my fun. It's not like my spellcards even work with these things."

Marisa eyed the pistols. "Don't worry. I'll give you a couple of mine."

Alice coughed into her hand. "Well, Nitori said to remind you that these are magical devices. Don't expect recoil." She thrust the case into Sanae's hands. "Miss Kirisame, a spell card please." With deft hands, the puppeteer slid a brass ramrod out from beneath the pistol's barrel.

"I said borrow, not ruin!" Marisa reached for the balled spellcard in Alice's hand.

The puppeteer rammed the wadded card into the pistol and replaced the rod. Spinning the device in her had until she held it by the barrel, Alice slapped the wooden grip into Marisa's hand. "There you go, one single shot. Keep it pointed at the ground until you have cause to use it."

"And then what?"

"Don't miss." Alice slid a ramrod free from another pistol. Suwako held onto that one and the third, intended for Sanae. After Marisa grasped hold of the final device, Alice took the case from Sanae and set it down at her feet. "Now, if you would stand your principals back to back. Upon my word, you shall both advance five paces. Now, advance!"

Sanae counted to five and stopped quivering as she waited for the next command. Suwako stepped in front of her and smiled. If was a comfort to have her grandmother present. The wise earth goddess always knew the right words to calm Sanae.

"Try to spook Reimu into firing early. I want a shot at her too." Suwako handed Sanae the pistol and patted her priestess on the shoulder.

Sanae laughed and squared her shoulders. The pistol felt right in her hand. She could grow used to this manner of dueling.

"Arm!" Alice bellowed.

It took her free hand to pull the hammer back, and not her thumb, unlike in the movies Sanae had watched. Suwako stepped three paces to Sanae's side and leveled her pistol toward Reimu.

"Turn!"

Sanae pivoted around, her long cloak trailing a wide circle behind her. She locked eyes with Reimu. Neither girl blinked, but, like horses just before a race, they strained against the need to stay still, waiting for the word that would release them.

"Present!"

She raised her pistol and turned her body until she peered down her shoulder, along her arm, and down the barrel, a mirror of her opponent's actions. Despite herself, Sanae scowled at Reimu's narrower profile. For once, the shrinemaiden held the advantage.

The world narrowed until Sanae's pistol and Reimu all but filled her sight. At the fuzzy edges, a figure in white raised her hand. Sanae's breath hissed from between her lips.

The white handkerchief floated out of Alice's hand.

Hammers fell, spraying sparks as flint met steel. Storm walls of danmaku surged toward the shrine maidens, obscuring the dueling grounds in a tempest of magic, fire, and shot. The last ripples of danmaku streaked past, and as quick as the field roiled into a magical inferno, it subsided.

Sanae groaned and lowered her spent pistol. Reimu still stood, without a streak of white bleaching her scarlet jacket. The danmaku had passed her by, just as it did Sanae, who had not felt its astringent sting. The matter between the shrinemaidens remained unresolved. Their game must have a winner.

Suwako rushed towards her, brushing her hands through every fold of Sanae's cloak and tabard.

"Give me yours." Sanae reached for Suwako's pistol.

The goddess laughed as she slipped out of the way. "Stand still and stop that. The longer this takes, the longer it'll be until you can go again. Next time, though, aim to the right a bit." She brushed off Sanae's shoulders. "Although there's nothing stopping you two from deciding a winner through more traditional methods. You'll have to wait, though, until Alice has her bit of fun." She spun about and waved a hand high over her head.

The Mistress of the Duel beckoned with her hand. Marisa and Suwako met in front of Alice, wide smiles on their faces.

"' _Our friends have exchanged shots. Are you satisfied, or is there any cause why the contest should be continued_?'" Alice read from a small pamphlet in her hand.

"I've seen that look in Reimu's eye. She's going to keep going until she wins." Marisa pointed over her shoulder to where her principal stood with her arms crossed, tapping her foot.

"Sanae's blood is up as well." Suwako pursed her lips. "You know, if we don't stop this now, we won't get our turn to play."

Marisa thrust out her hand and winked. "Satisfied?"

Alice shoved her pamphlet into the witch's hand. "You have to say the lines. That's the entire point of the matter."

Marisa rolled her eyes and crowded next to Suwako in front of the rules. The ancient battle goddess traced a finger across the page before stabbing at the appropriate response. "' _The point of honor being settled, there can, I conceive, be no objection to a reconciliation, and I propose that our principals meet on middle ground, shake hands, and be friends_ ,'" the two seconds read in unison.

Alice plucked the pamphlet away from Marisa. Her voice cut high and clear through the field. "'' _We have agreed that the present duel shall cease, the honor of each of you is preserved, and you will meet on middle ground, shake hands, and be reconciled_.'"

"No fair!" Reimu shouted. The shrine maiden rushed towards the Mistress of the Duel. "No one won." She stripped the rules from Alice and searched them.

Sanae bounced up to her and clasped Reimu's hands in her own. "See, I told you that we should have been dueling like this all along." The priestess's eyes shimmered and she beamed.

Reimu stared down Alice. "I want a rematch."

"The matter has been decided." Alice unfurled a paper fan with her free hand and covered her mouth. "Just be glad that I didn't tell you two to kiss and make up."

"You can do that?" Reimu tugged her hands free from Sanae's.

"I think Alice wants her turn to play." Sanae scooped her cavalier's hat off of Suwako's head. "Otherwise she wouldn't render offense like that. Can you duel two people at once?"

"I call first shot, Wonder Girl."

"Get in line, you three." Marisa twirled her pistol in her fingers. "The tadpole and I go next. Unless you all want to see up close what a Master Spark looks like through one of these."

The duelists spun around as a loud squeal pealed from the treeline. Four doll-like heads poked out from behind an ancient tree. Cirno bolted towards the dueling grounds, with the three Fairies of Light nipping at her heels.

"So much for their chores." Reimu shook her head and pointed toward the fairies before pointing towards her shrine. Instead, Star and Luna mobbed Alice, while Sunny pestered Suwako.

"You know better than to try to keep a fairy away from anything exciting." Marisa held her two dueling pistols high over her head. Cirno bounced in circles around the witch, straining for the prizes just out of her reach. The ice fairy's wings fluttered and her leaps grew until her fingers brushed against the cold iron. Unlike the _sidhe_ of the West, touching the metal did nothing to dampen her enthusiasm.

"At least they're not the tengu reporters." Sanae's smile grew strained as Sunny yanked on her cloak.

Cirno dropped off of Marisa's arm. "How was that fighting?" She looked up at Reimu with a furled brow. "You just stood still."

Reimu cast a pleading glance to Alice.

"It's a test of bravery. Only the brave will remain still, and only by standing still will you not get hit." Alice tugged the hem of her dress out of Star's hand.

"It's the opposite of a spellcard duel?"

Reimu watched as that idea worked its way from one side of the ice fairy's brain to the other. "Don't look at me. It's something that men came up with and Sanae insisted on trying." Her voice dropped into a stage whisper. "I've given up on trying to understand either of them."

"So that's why the men of Gensokyo insist that you provide a dowry before any of them will court you." Suwako tapped a finger against her chin and looked into the sky, contemplating a cloud.

Sunny took one look at the shrinemaiden's face and ran behind Cirno

Reimu's shoulders slumped. "Don't remind me. The aliens make more sense."

Cirno's eyes lit up. "So, if it's like a spellcard duel, all I have to do is challenge someone?"

Sanae knelt in front of the ice fairy and her friend. "Not quite. There's more rules than a spellcard duel. For instance, you only fight over slights and insults, not for fun. And Alice over there insists that we dress up and speak fancy." Her voice shifted into a rough parody of Mokou's courtier accent. "Do fairies read Heian poetry?"

Luna glowered at the priestess and nodded.

Cirno held out her hands and concentrated. Water pooled in the air until a reasonable facsimile of Sanae's cavalier hat froze solid, complete with an icy feather plume. Placing the hat on her head at a rakish angle, the ice fairy puffed out her chest and glared at Marisa. "You have offended me..." Her eyes flickered towards Alice and Sanae.

Alice hid her smile behind a lace glove and knelt next to the fairy. Cirno nodded as the puppeteer whispered into her ear.

"...and I demand satisfaction. Meet me upon the field of battle and die!"

"Close enough," Alice muttered.

Marisa laughed and held out her smoothbore spellcard pistols towards Reimu. "Miss Hakurei, would you be my second?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excerpts from The Code of Honor, Or, Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Duelling by John Lyde Wilson are used without permission.


	13. A Book for Her Pillow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akyuu and Kosuzu play a poetry game.

Kosuzu leaned over an ancient scholar's desk and tapped a chalcedony inkstone. Charcoal ripples splashed inside the stone's shallow bowl, threatening to spot the leaves of snowy paper that the bookseller had unwisely sat the polished well upon.

Her breath hissing from her throat, Lady Akyuu grabbed her confidant's sleeve. "Careful." The young landgravine, heiress of the Hieda clan, guided Kosuzu away from the trembling inkstone. She pointed towards the paper. "That is a treasure beyond measure."

"You do realize that we sell blank journals by the shelf." Kosuzu's eyes narrowed and she swept a hand towards the bookshelves surrounding the desk. "Wait, what have you been reading lately?"

 _"'What do you think we could write on this?'"_  A smile graced Lady Akyuu's porcelain lips as she paused in her quotation, drawing out the caesura.  _"'Perhaps we should make it a pillow.'"_

Huffing, Kosuzu rocked back into her chair. "I knew it. There was no way that you could spend all that time studying. But why Sei Shonagon? She's so frivolous. Lady Murasaki's works are better." She tilted her head and stared at the landgravine. "Did any of your past selves ever meet Lady Murasaki?"

Pursing her lips, Lady Akyuu, ninth reincarnation of the Child of Miare, brushed a dark lock of hair over her ear. "Ami passed away before Lady Murasaki came to court."

"Pity. I would have loved to have met her, if I were you."

In the heart of the village, surrounded by suitors, Lady Mokou Fujiwara huddled in her fiery mink robe and sneezed.

Lady Akyuu picked up the inkstone well with both hands and set it upon the desk. "We can fill up the pages with our thoughts."

Kosuzu picked up the loose leaves of paper and tamped them into a tidy stack. "You mean poetry."

The slight landgravine giggled. "You could use the practice. At one time, a clever turn of phrase and clean brushstrokes were all a girl needed to lure a suitor." Rose crept into Lady Akyuu's cheeks. Ami's amorous adventures in the Heian court flashed vivid in her mind.

"I've watched while the boys chase after Komachi. It isn't her poetry that they're looking at." Kosuzu crossed her arms beneath her breasts.

Lady Akyuu closed her eyes and sighed. "Well, at least you looked up from your  _youkai_  books for once."

The bookseller thrust the stack of paper in Lady Akyuu's hands. "Better ghost stories than dusty histories."

Lady Akyuu's smile grew strained. Kosuzu was closer than a sister, and occasionally bickered like one. The landgravine hugged the ream of paper again her chest.

"I'll use a pen this time, not a brush." The bell at the bookstore's door rang, and Kosuzu vanished into the maze of tall bookshelves.

Smiling, Lady Akyuu set the pages on the desk, dipped a brush into the well of the inkstone, and began to write.

 _"'_ **In spring, the dawn _-_** _when the slowly paling mountain rim is tinged with red,_ _and wisps of faintly crimson-purple cloud float in the sky_.'"

Lady Akyuu tapped her brush dry against the inkstone and sighed. Fighting the urge to blot out her lines, she blew the page dry and slid it beneath the stack of paper. She wanted a pillow book of her own, a journal of thoughts and memories, not a transcribed copy of the 291 entries in Sei Shonagon's. Kosuzu's bookstore could print a copy faster.

Besides, she had been relying too much on poetic allusions since reading  _The Pillow Book_. Yukari Yakumo, her editor, had mentioned as much, although the enigmatic  _youkai_  preferred the grace of Heian verse to the more scholarly Chinese proverbs. But a woman of the Hieda was expected to know her poetry, and the Child of Miare, more so.

Before each child of the Hieda clan could read, she was brought before the head of the family. He would read a line from the twenty volumes of the  _Kokinshu_  and wait for the child's reply. If she completed the verse, he would read another and another until the child made a single mistake or the twenty volumes were exhausted. Only the reincarnated Child of Miare would be able to recite the poems from a perfect memory of her past lines.

But if a chronicler steeped in the classics found a simple journal a challenge…

Lady Akyuu stood up and peeked around a bookshelf. Kosuzu chatted with Alice Margatroid by the shop's counter. The blonde magician traded silver for a slender book of sonnets, her cheeks glowing like the sunrise. As the door chimes rang out, Lady Akyuu swooped up the paper on the desk and rushed towards the counter.

* * *

Kosuzu leaned against the checkout counter and tapped a capped pen against the pure white page. She never knew how to start, at least whenever Lady Akyuu wanted to play her word games. The blank page invited her to fill it with the smoke-like glyphs that the  _youkai_ used, but her copies lacked the virtue of the texts written by  _youkai_. Besides, her neighbors grew worried whenever they couldn't understand a word that Kosuzu had written.

Her pen spinning through her fingers, Kosuzu pursed her lips and looked behind her. Back by the scholar's desk, Lady Akyuu checked a stack of books against a list in her hand. Knowing the landgravine, it was probably a list of lists, just like many of the classics on the table.

Kosuzu sighed and turned away, gazing through the storefront window and watching as the people of her village hurried past the bookstore in the course of their day. A young girl ran across the village street and leapt into her father's arms. Kosuzu cooed as the man spun his daughter through the air.

The bookseller's pen twirled to a stop, and Kosuzu began to write.

' **Things that delight -** _Fairies singing as they dance circles beneath the blossoming_ sakura _flowers. The crackle and hiss of the phonograph as it spins up a new song. Resting among the daisies with a favorite book in hand, basking in the midsummer warmth alongside the damselflies. The chimes of the storefront bells as they greet my father at the end of his long book-buying trip. The first sip of leftover plum wine from my mother's cup while I'm clearing the dinner table, after she's gone into the kitchen, of course.'_

A shadow fell over the page. "You do frivolous well."

Kosuzu shrieked and threw her body across the page.

"It's too late. I've already memorized it."

The bookseller looker up. "Oh, it's just you."

Lady Akyuu's face became a placid mask. "'Just me?'" A ghost of a smile flashed across her lips.

"Well, I don't see what you've written." Kosuzu sat up and smoothed out the front of her shopkeeper's apron. She held out a hand towards her friend. "Hand it over."

"It's not ready yet." The landgravine cast a look over her shoulder. "My family is known for their writing. It takes time to craft something worthy of their name."

Kosuzu sighed and slid her writing into a nearby drawer. "I'm surprised. With a memory like yours, I'd have just written down something that a past life had overheard."

"Then it wouldn't have been mine." Lady Akyuu hid her scarlet cheeks behind flowing sleeves.

The pixyish bookseller twirled her pen before flipping it at her friend. As Lady Akyuu caught it with both hands, Kosuzu said, "Just bring something tomorrow. Make it two. A poem for a poem."

"So you'll keep writing?"

"As long as you do."

"That's great." Lady Akyuu smiled and pointed to the ream of paper at Kosuzu's elbow. "One down, two hundred ninety-one to go."

Kosuzu groaned, but slid a fresh white sheet onto the counter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akyuu quotes from Meredith McKinney's translation of The Pillow Book, by Sei Shonagon, and used without permission.
> 
> A Book for Her Pillow is set several weeks after All's Fair in Love and Thievery.


	14. The Sea of Stone

The border of the Great Moon Palace was always being churned under by the motion of spreading stone and regolith. It had always been so, or so it seemed, from the days when Reisen's namesake had been a birth-blind bunny, and the scholars in their tall caps whispered that it would always be so, until the rocks finally buried the Great Moon Palace. Indeed, if a rabbit were so inclined, she could watch the slow creep of stone chew away at her home. Only from the Palace side, of course. The other side was nothing but airless desert, and, again, the scholars whispered that it would always be so.

None of the auguries ever explained just how the deadly excess of earth swept all life away, but back at the proscribed eight spans of eight strides from the desert, Reisen read her book in safety. It would take a year and a half for the desert to reach her. She'd be finished with the series before then, and that included the visits to Earth to hunt down the sequels. For the moment, the serene quiet allowed her to imagine what might have been and what might yet be.

The lop-eared moon rabbit peeked over the top of her book and licked her lips. A young scholar-in-training, built like a blacksmith's apprentice instead of an aesthete, knelt by the regolith and charted its spread. Perhaps he would prove to be as attentive to poetry and anatomy at night as he must be to the ancient classics in the day. Reisen pursed her lips and watched. Would he respond to a coltish maiden, or would the brash coquette catch his eye?

"Reisen, darling!"

Or would another come by and steal him away? The moon rabbit cringed and turned towards her name. With a wan smile, she greeted her master. "Hello, Princess Toyohime."

The radiant Princess of the Moon, with her flowing hair and wide-brimmed hat, glided towards her. Princess Toyohime's eye caught the scholar at the border. "I was worried about why you would stay out here in the shadow of death. Now I'm sure that it isn't death that you are seeking. Have you tried to play hard to get?"

"It won't matter now." Reisen closed her book and rocked to her feet. The young man hadn't been attentive until Princess Toyohime had arrived.

"Two centuries ago, I would have agreed." Lady Toyohime turned her back to the scholar and raised her voice. "Alas, I am now a respectable woman, and must only console myself in my husband's arms."

The scholar turned quickly to his work, occasionally casting a glance at the two moon women. Reisen combed out her white ears and arched her back. To her delight, the young man found renewed enthusiasm for his duties even as his eyes wondered more. She glanced over at the princess, who stared forlorn out at the sea of stone and shuddered. "Princess?"

"How do you stand it out here?" Princess Toyohime whispered. She held a hand atop her hat as a gust blew through the grey rock border. "The gardens would be more suitable to pleasure and courtship than this desolation. How can there be joy here, where the mechanical age grinds wonder into dust?"

Reisen shuddered and crept away from the slow churn of regolith. The mechanical age had been the lament of the Moon for centuries. Wonder had slowly died as the humans on Earth poked into the strange and made it familiar, and the familiar, contemptible. The ancient tales, flayed and diagrammed for all to see, no longer reigned in the imagination, so the ancient wonders on Earth and above it, such as the Moon Palace, faded.

The moon rabbit looked up at the blue and white marble in the sky. Following her namesake's footsteps, she had floated upon a moonbeam with a mooncloth robe, and found wonders of her own in a hidden valley. Reisen pursed her lips and gathered her thoughts.

"Some say I should enjoy the decline and chase the dragon with love and wine until I no longer notice what is being stolen around me. Others, that we must return to the Earth and embrace the cycle of life and death that we rejected centuries before. Still others, that we must flee to the stars, ever doomed to an eternal procession of lost homes." As the princess bared her soul, her face grew to match the encroaching rock. "I'd wager that if we asked your scholar, he would tell us to embrace the ways of the anchorite in austerity and venerate the ancient tenants. Yet the old philosophies offer no consolation

"What room is there for wonder in these clockwork days?"

Reisen's breath caught in her throat as two tears slid down the princess's cheek. The moon rabbit swallowed and chose her words with the care of a jeweler sorting stones. "Before I met Sanae, Wind Priestess of Youkai Mountain, I would have thought the same."

Princess Toyohime wiped away her tears. "What does the rival of my sister's reluctant apprentice have to do with the Moon Palace's fate?"

"I've read through a few of her books, the ones she brought from the greater world outside of Gensokyo. They were full of heroes rescuing and rescued by maidens, mighty deeds, and breath-stealing spectacles. Sages commanding Nature herself across countless strange lands. Just like in the tales of old. The mechanical age did not destroy the old myths, but just changed their clothes." Reisen tapped the book in her hand.

Princess Toyohime leaned closer and ran her finger across the book's spine. "Dressed them up in rags, you mean."

Reisen shook her head. "Who among the ancients dreamed of building a ring in the sky larger than any star? Or would seed the night sky with new diamonds, each a home to a new nation? Remember, it was wonder that drew Apollo's arrows here to the moon."

The princess tapped a fan to her lips. "I thought it was because of a competition between nations."

"They still chose the Moon for their quest, constructing devices that still cause the gods of the forge to tremble." Reisen looked and scrunched her shoulder so as to hide her neck from an executioner's blade. The Apollo excursions still wounded the pride of the Moon Palace. "Your Highness, perhaps we have confused wonder with worship."

The Moon Princess's face had turned into an inscrutable stone mask leveled at Reisen. Princess Toyohime reached out with the same fan that had driven the Apollo astronauts from the moon and tapped her servant at the base of her neck. "Explain."

"It is true that the Earthlings have forgotten us. Read about their heroes, though. Watch as they control fire, water, wood, wind, and metal. Can you tell me that, even in this mechanical age, that you cannot see echoes of the gods in their knights? In their aliens, our angels and demons? In their planets, the uncharted lands where once was written 'Here Be Dragons'? Can you tell me that people have truly forgotten wonder?" Reisen trembled underneath the paper fan but refused to shrink away.

"I would, but I have yet to read the tales of which you speak."

The moon rabbit handed over her book. Toyohime, Princess of the Moon, stood on the shore of a sea of stone and the tales written by dreamers from another world. She turned over a page, and then another, unmindful that Reisen squeezed next to her, until with two final words, she closed the book. "I must show this to my husband."

"You will give that back, right?" Reisen asked as the book vanished into her master's pocket.

The princess nodded and, with sudden mirth, pointed to where the young scholar finally walked away from the regolith. "I think he's delayed his duties as long as he can." Princess Toyohime spun Reisen about and shoved her in the young man's direction. "Better hurry!"

Late that night, after the Earth had set, a scholar-in-training had found delight in a coquette's kisses, and a husband counsel from his wife, the regolith waves ground to a stop. For the first time in centuries, the sea of stone ebbed away from the Moon Palace's lands.


	15. Dark Matter

Hidden inside a basement recording booth beneath a steel and glass box building at Tokyo University, Sumireko Usami yawned and rested her head against her computer desk. Ignoring the flashing scarlet warning from the On Air signal lamp on the wall, she set her glasses by the phone switchboard near her head. "Just fifteen more minutes, Mom."

"I'm not your mother and the first commercial break is in fifteen minutes," Ruri Himeyuri called out over the intercom. Separated from the recording booth by a pane of glass, the slight recording engineer reigned over the upcoming radio show from her perch in the sound booth. "Dead air won't pay for our tuitions."

Sumireko waved away Ruri's concern before melting against her desk. A howl of shrill feedback squealed from the recording booth's speakers. The dark haired girl leapt to her feet and fumbled for her glasses.

The On Air lamp flickered one last time before bathing the booth in a steady red glow. After a short explosion of clicks and pops from the speakers, the intro to Sumeriko's radio show started playing.

 _"From Godzilla's Playground on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, good morning, good evening, wherever you may be. Welcome to Tokyo University's most listened-to late night talk show,_ Dark Matter _."_

As the recording of a communications student pressed into the service of Tokyo University's only late night talk show rattled off the phone numbers for the call-in lines, Sumireko spun around and stuck her tongue out at her sound engineer. Ruri laughed and pointed Sumireko back to her chair, the red light giving her elfin features a devilish cast.

"Slavedriver," Sumireko mouthed. She took her seat and placed a set of mammoth tin-can headphones over her ears. She flipped the page on the daily calendar and groaned. For every show Sumireko hosted about magic, telepathy, and lost civilizations like the Turtles of Pararakelse,  _Dark Matter_  needed two shows on UFOs, government cover-ups, and cryptid sightings, complete with the cringe-inducing refrain of "Aliens!", to pay the bills. Only engineering students would be calling in tonight.

_"…and now, here is your host, Sumireko Usami."_

She unmuted her headset microphone and read from her prompt. "Three years ago, the space station greenhouse TORIFUNE malfunctioned, flying from low earth orbit to Lagrangian Point 4, some 384,000 kilometers away from both the earth and the moon. At the same time, the crew vanished, leaving what should have been Japan's lush green ark floating derelict through the night sky. The newspapers have all told their version of the story over the years, but tonight, on this Phone-in Friday, I want to hear from all you True Believers on what really happened out there in space."

Sumireko rolled her eyes as Ruri added a deepening echo to the word "space." Glancing down at the switchboard, she saw a constellation of phone line light up. Picking one at random, she read from the display. "Tokyo University, you're on the air."

A syrupy voice bubbled from the speakers. "Hi, I'm Karin-"

"No real names. You never know who might be listening."

"Can I be called Spooky Girl?"

"We do have two others calling in by that name," Sumireko said.

"They'll just have to choose new nicknames."

The radio host stifled a giggle. "So, Spooky Girl, what's your take?"

"It's obvious. Aliens."

Sumireko rolled her eyes and waited for more. After thirty seconds of silence, she cleared her throat. "That's it?"

"It'd be more fun if it were ghosts, but I wouldn't expect a ghost to know what happened to a space station. It would make for an amazing tale for your ghost story show, though. When's the next one?"

"Next week."

"Oh. I'll call back then. I've got the perfect story. No space stations, I promise."

"I'm looking forward to it." The twintailed host toggled her switchboard. "Hello, Lake Suwa, you're on  _Dark Matter with Sumireko Usami_."

"Good evening, Sumireko. Call me Inari. I'm a long time listener and a first time caller," a matronly woman said. Sumireko could hear pages rustling in the background as though Inari was correcting papers while she spoke. "You are right not to listen to the newspapers."

"Tell me why." Sumireko steeled herself for the certain cry of "Aliens!"

"Look at the delta-V and the distances. Numbers don't lie," growled Inari.

Sumireko shuddered. The respite from the engineering dorms had been short lived. "I hope you're not asking me to check your work, because I'm not a physics major, thank the gods."

"Fine. Let's start with a simple claim, that TORIFUNE was moved to the L-4 point for the purposes of recovery from earth."

"That is where the astronomers found it."

"True, but for recovery? With what?" Inari gave a sharp laugh like a fox's bark. "TORIFUNE is as far from both the earth and the moon as they are from each other. It's been forty years since humanity had the capability to fly that far, and the Apollo program is now nothing more than a museum piece. Soyuz and the Space Shuttle could only reach TORIFUNE when it was in low earth orbit. There is no recovery at L-4 possible without designing a new spacecraft from scratch.

"Furthermore, there wasn't enough fuel on TORIFUNE to move the station the 604,442 kilometers to the L-4 point, much less in a single day. You'd need a rocket the size of the station to do that, and you'd kill all life aboard in the process. Since the camera feeds from the onboard greenhouses still send back pictures of the plants and animals, we know that didn't happen.

As Inari lectured on, Sumireko jotted down notes on scratch paper. Math wasn't her talent, so she would need to copy tonight's show off of Ruri's hard drive so she could have Renko check the claims. Her cousin ate up math problems as complex as the ones Inari described. "Those numbers say a lot."

"The numbers don't lie," Inari said.

"Do they say who moved TORIFUNE to its new orbit?" Sumireko waited for the inevitable refrain.

"No." Inari sighed. "You can't tell that from the numbers alone. But the L-4 point is a hint. Not only is it too far away for anyone on Earth to reach, it's one of two points in all of space where a space station can remain over the same point on the moon's surface without drifting."

An emerald light flashed atop her switchboard. Sumireko looked over her shoulder towards the glass window that divided the recording booth from the sound engineer's domain. Inside, Ruri held up two fingers. The talk show hostess nodded and reached towards her switchboard. "You've given us a lot to think over, Inari. Thank you for calling." She toggled the switchboard to line two and read the identifier. "Mount Yatsugatake, you're on  _Dark Matter_."

"Sumireko, darling, it's Cherry," a husky voice crooned into Sumireko's earpiece.

Ruri pointed to the clock and mouthed, "Keep her talking."

Smiling, the radio host flashed a thumb's up at her engineer. The coquette was a favorite of the audience and Sumireko alike. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you tonight. You usually don't call in during our space shows."

"I couldn't bear to think that you might replace me with that vixen that was just on the phone," Cherry cooed.

"Wait, you know Inari?"

"Honey, I get to meet everybody." As Cherry giggled, the switchboard filled with calls. Between shows,  _Dark Matter's_  audience flooded the suggestion line with demands for callers to talk to Cherry while she was on. Sumireko and Ruri were adamant in their refusal. People dialed in to listen to Cherry vamp her way across the air waves. Horny engineering students and drunken frat frats stumbling over the latest pick-up line would tank the show's rating faster than a night of commercial reruns. "She should know better than to slip her leash like that."

"Have you met someone who knows what happened to TORIFUNE?"

"Several of the darlings. If you do meet them, don't look in their eyes."

"Let me guess." Sumireko braced herself. "Aliens?"

"No," Cherry chirped, "moon bunnies."

Sumireko cast a glance at her calendar. It was indeed the night of the full moon. "Aren't they the same?"

"Hardly, dear. The only saucers those precious girls use are for tea. Haven't I told you about my visit to the moon?"

"For a month with your gardener, right?"

"You do remember. Excellent! But maybe I should retell it for all of the True Believers listening?"

"Maybe next time." Sumireko ignored the pounding against the recording booth's glass. "We'll make an entire show out of it." That would mollify Ruri. The advertisers would pay five times the going rate just to have Cherry simper her way through the phonebook on the air. And after Ruri finished her newest extortionate shakedown of the advertisers, they would pay six times more.

"It's a date," Cherry purred.

"Looking forward to it." Sumireko coughed and tried to hide her burning cheeks in her hand. She cleared her throat. "Tell me about these moon bunnies. What do they look like?"

"Like you or me, but with long white jackrabbit ears."

Sumireko shook her head, trying to banish an image from her mind. "TORIFUNE was stolen by Playboy Bunnies?"

"Nothing that crass, dear. Trust me, you'd understand if you saw one. Just don't look in her eyes."

"You've said that already."

"I always forget if I've said that. But then again, I forget a lot after the moon bunnies visit for some reason," Cherry said.

"When did you last see them?"

"Last evening, while I was watching the sunset underneath my cherry tree. Such delightful girls. I did mention not to look in their red eyes, right? Anyway, after a stiff shot of spirits, their leader started bragging. You see, the Moon is a garden, and the moon rabbits need new plants. You humans were so kind to ship up a special delivery to your neighbors. Who could resist that opportunity?"

"Why didn't they just take the station to the moon? What's so special about the L-4 point?"

"You know, she didn't say, but I think the answer to the first has something to do with purity. As for L-4, didn't you listen to that vixen? That's the only place where you can park it overhead on the Moon and have it stay there, which makes it easier for the rabbits to travel to it. With proper care, the seeds and cuttings from TORIFUNE will last for millennia."

Sumireko whistled as she mulled over Cherry's revelation. "Well, an interplanetary heist makes more sense than most of the stories I hear on the show. So what did the rabbits do with the missing crew?"

"No, silly girl, the rabbits  _were_  the crew-" A shrill whistle on the phone line cut Cherry off. Sumireko flinched and covered her ears, forgetting about her headphones.

"Seiran, terminate the phone call from T-7," an aristocratic woman ordered over the phone.

The line went dead.

As the disconnected tone pulsed like a heartbeat in her headphones, a wild-eyed Sumireko caught her breath. "Cherry? Please call back. Let us know that you're all right." She hung up the call and tapped the "return phone call" button on her switchboard. Once again, the monotone disconnected signal rang out into the night. "True believers, I don't know what just happened, but we'll try to get Cherry back during this commercial break."

She muted her microphone. As the red On Air lamp faded away, Sumireko unplugged her headphones and charged into the sound booth. "Ruri, did you hear what just happened?" A squeal escaped her lips as she froze in the doorway.

Behind the soundboard and laptop of the sound engineer's desk sat not the petite wunderkind Ruri, but an athletic schoolgirl in an amber crop top, shorts, and a battered newsboy's hat. The stranger chewed on a long wooden skewer as she pried the hard drive out of the computer with a screwdriver. Two white rabbit ears hung out of her cap like twintails.

Cherry was right. A chill ran up Sumireko's spine.

A willowy woman in a white dress stepped out from behind the door. A white derringer with bunny ear sights rested on her hip. Sumireko shrank away from her, for, like the yellow stranger clutching her prize, the lavender-tressed woman sported a pair of snowy bunny ears, like a March hare's. The white rabbit grabbed Sumeriko by the wrist and pulled her inside the sound booth.

The door slammed shut behind her.

Sumireko clenched her eyes shut, just as Cherry advised. "Where's Ruri?"

The white rabbit shrugged. "She had a sudden errand to attend to."

"At three in the morning?"

"She didn't say before she left."

"She's going to be furious that you're messing with her computer."

"I don't think she'll remember." The willowy woman caressed the radio host's cheek. "Neither will you. Try to remember to leave the hidden things alone. If you can."

Sumireko pulled away from the electric touch, wide-eyed. She looked up at the white rabbit and whimpered. Despite the warnings, despite her will, Sumireko grew mesmerized with the woman's glowing red eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ZUN put a lot of time into getting the astronomy of TORIFUNE and Trojan Green Asteroid right, even down to correct distances, to the point that a reader could figure out that the station had been moved to one of only two specific points in space. The rocket science, however, leaves a little more to be desired…
> 
> Karin Sasamori and Ruri Himeyuri are borrowed from ToHeart2 by Aquaplus.


End file.
